India Taps AI in Forecasts as Extreme Weather Weighs on Economy

India recorded extreme weather events on 235 of the 273 days between January 1 to September 30 this year, a study found

India is planning to employ artificial intelligence (AI) for weather forecasting after an intense year of extreme climate ranging from torrential rains and floods to droughts.

The country is doing tests with AI to build climate models, with plans to incorporate those into traditional forecasting models, a top weather official said.

India recorded extreme weather events on 235 of the 273 days between January 1 to September 30 this year, according to Indian daily Hindustan Times.

Citing a study by Indian not-for-profit advocacy group Centre for Science and Environment, the report said extreme weather events killed nearly 3,000 people in the country during the nine-month period.

The study did not include estimates on losses of public property or crops due to a lack of data.

But it noted the weather events impacted 1.84 million hectares of crop area, destroyed more than 80,000 houses, and killed more than 92,000 livestock.

India’s weather crisis stems from global warming, which has triggered intense clashes of weather systems in the country in recent years.

That makes accurate weather forecasting particularly crucial in India, a country of 1.4 billion people — many of whom are impoverished.

India is also the world’s second-largest producer of rice, wheat and sugar.

AI generated public alerts

Weather agencies around the world are focussing on AI, which can bring down cost and improve speed.

Britain’s Met Office has said AI could “revolutionise” weather forecasting, with a recent Google-funded model found to have outperformed conventional methods.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides forecasts based on mathematical models using supercomputers. Using AI with an expanded observation network could help generate higher-quality forecast data at lower cost.

The department expects the AI-based climate models and advisories it is developing to help improve forecasts, KS Hosalikar, head of climate research and services at IMD said.

The weather office has used AI to generate public alerts regarding heatwaves and such diseases as malaria, Hosalikar said.

It plans to increase weather observatories, providing data down to village level, potentially offering higher-resolution data for forecasts, he said.

Better data needed

The government said on Thursday it wants to generate weather and climate forecasts by incorporating AI into traditional models. It has set up a centre to test the idea through workshops and conferences.

“An AI model doesn’t require the high cost involved in running a supercomputer – you can even run it out of a good quality desktop,” Saurabh Rathore, an assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, said.

Better data is also needed to make the most out of AI, experts say.

“Without having high-resolution data in space and time, no AI model for location-specific magnification of existing model forecasts is feasible,” said Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

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