As climate change makes weather more unpredictable and extreme, we need more reliable forecasts to help us prepare and prevent disasters. Today, meteorologists use massive computer simulations to make their forecasts. They take hours to complete, because scientists have to analyze weather variables such as temperature, precipitation, pressure, wind, humidity, and cloudiness one by one.
However, new artificial-intelligence systems could significantly speed up that process and make forecasts—and extreme-weather warnings—more accurate, two papers published in Nature today suggest.
The first, developed by Huawei, details how its new AI model, Pangu-Weather, can predict weekly weather patterns around the world much more quickly than traditional forecasting methods, but with comparable accuracy.
The second demonstrates how a deep-learning algorithm was able to predict extreme rainfall more accurately and with more notice than other leading methods, ranking first around 70% of the time in tests against similar existing systems.