AI System to Monitor Weather and Climate Change Assignment 2022

GROUP 4
SESONGA EMMANUEL E/BIT/21/05/14553
DUSABIMANA AIME E/BIT/20/09/13261
SHEMA KABANDANA KEVIN E/BBIT/20/09/13364
NSENGIYUMVA INNOCENT E/BIT/19/09/11866
KIPKORIR JARED E/BCS/20/09/12920
MUSABYIMANA VALENTINE COLOMBE E/BIT/21/05/14848
CREPIN MIZAMBO E/BIT/21/01/13680
DISCUSS AI SYSTEM TO MONITOR WEATHER AND CLIMATE
CHANGE IN YOUR COUNTRY.
Abstract
Climate change deals with the global phenomenon of climate transformation that
significantly impacts the earth's usual climatic conditions (temperature, precipitation,
wind, etc.). They are mainly caused due to human-made activities. Still, many people
were unaware of the actual impacts of climate change, and they greatly enhance its
risk through their day to day activities. The major source of climate change is global
warming, which is primarily caused by the greenhouse effect. The emission of
greenhouse gases from everyday human activities results in an unprecedented rise in
earth temperature, and it is predicted to nurture even more in the future if left
unaddressed. Rapid urbanization and industrial revolution are the other main causes
that lead to the risk of climate change with increased energy demand and production,
especially in the form of fossil fuels. The growing risk of climate change has a
disastrous impact on earth organisms, including human beings and earth's flora and
fauna. It further leads to the destruction of the food chain and economic resources.
The impacts will be more crucial in developing and under-developed countries in
comparison to the developed countries. While there exist possible literature to adapt
to mitigate the impacts of climate change, these may become ineffective and obsolete
over time as the severity may increase. Hence finding more advanced ways to predict,
analyze, monitor, and mitigate climate change impacts has become crucially
unavoidable.
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a disruptive paradigm that has greater potential to assess,
predict, and mitigate the risk of climate change with efficient use of data, learning
algorithms, and sensing devices. It performs a calculation, makes predictions, and
take decisions to mitigate the impacts of climate change. By developing effective
models for weather forecasting and environmental monitoring, AI makes us better
understand the impacts of climate change across various geographical locations. It
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interprets climatic data and predicts weather events, extreme climate conditions, and
other socio-economic impacts of climate change and precipitation. From a technical
perspective, AI offers better climatic predictions, shows the impacts of extreme
weather, finds the actual source of carbon emitters and includes numerous other
reasonable contributions. This enables the policymakers to be aware of the rising sea
levels, earth hazards, hurricanes, temperature change, disruption to natural habitats,
and species extinction. Nevertheless, the research community and experts have
already started focusing on climate informatics with AI paradigms. The predictive
models are more appropriate to short-term forecasting models and diverge from the
long-term prediction, assessment, and mitigation. To get the maximum benefit from
AI for climate change mitigation, more advanced researches are necessitated towards
this domain.
AI Can Accelerate Our Response to Climate Change
There’s no time to waste: atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest ever
(even with significant drops from the stay-at-home orders for
COVID-19), average sea levels are rising (3 inches in the last 25 years
alone), and 2019 was the hottest year on record for the world's
oceans. Artificial intelligence isn't a silver bullet, but it can certainly
help us reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in various ways.
According to Capgemini Research Institute modeling, AI is estimated to
assist organizations in industries from consumer products to retail to
automotive and more fulfill up to 45% of the Paris Agreement targets
by 2030. AI will likely reduce GHG emissions by 16%. Here are a few
of the most promising ways that artificial intelligence already is or
can impact climate change strategy:
Understanding climate change
First of all, AI can help us, in understanding climate change better. Everything from
global-scale modeling to individual weather forecasting relies on a massive number of
variables, which is impossible for a human brain to do on its own. The interpretation
of climate data is based on climate informatics, a discipline created in 2011. It covers
a wide range of topics, such as predicting extreme weather events, reconstructing past
climate conditions, or the socio-economic impacts of climate change and
precipitations. This can help policymakers to take action and save lives. If you as an
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individual or as a company want to benefit yourself from an improved AI weather
forecasting
Measuring where carbon is coming from
Carbon Tracker is an independent financial think-tank working toward the UN goal
of preventing new coal plants from being built by 2020. By monitoring coal plant
emissions with satellite imagery, Carbon Tracker can use the data it gathers to
convince the finance industry that carbon plants aren't profitable.
A grant from Google is expanding the nonprofit’s satellite imagery efforts to include
gas-powered plants’ emissions and get a better sense of where air pollution is
coming from. While there are continuous monitoring systems near power plants that
can measure CO2 emissions more directly, they do not have global reach.
“This can be used worldwide in places that aren’t monitoring,” said Durand
D’souza, a data scientist at Carbon Tracker. “And we don’t have to ask permission.”
AI can automate the analysis of images of power plants to get regular updates on
emissions. It also introduces new ways to measure a plant’s impact, by crunching
numbers of nearby infrastructure and electricity use. That’s handy for gas-powered
plants that don’t have the easy-to-measure plumes that coal-powered plants have.
Carbon Tracker will now crunch emissions for 4,000 to 5,000 power plants, getting
much more information than currently available, and make it public. In the future, if
a carbon tax passes, remote sensing Carbon Tracker’s could help put a price on
emissions and pinpoint those responsible for it.
Tools to Help Understand Carbon Footprint
They say “knowledge is power,” and when it comes to climate change mitigation, AI
can help build tools to help individuals and companies understand their carbon
footprint and what actions they can take to reduce it.
Monitor Environment
This year, there were severe weather events that caused massive destruction and loss.
AI is used and will continue to be used to enhance weather prediction and response.
Changes to complex systems such as cloud cover and ice sheet dynamics caused some
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