“The potential for AI to improve weather forecasting and climate modelling (which also takes a long time and uses a lot of energy) has been known for several years now…
But a huge trial in India this year has taken a huge step forward. The Indian Ministry of Agriculture partnered with teams of scientists from the Human-Centred Weather Forecasts Initiative, the University of Chicago, California, Berkeley, Bombay, Bangalore, and others.
They sent weekly AI-powered forecasts about the monsoon to 38 million farmers across 13 states in India. These AI forecasts predicted changes in the monsoon that all other ones missed. The forecasts of the timing of the monsoon were sent up to four weeks in advance of its arrival; conventional physics-based modelling usually can’t do it more than five days in advance.
This year’s monsoon was a weird one. It hit Southern India in early June (which the AI model predicted), but then stopped temporarily for 20 days. No conventional model predicted this stall, but the AI-based one did…
In a self-reported survey, around one-quarter of the 38 million farmers adjusted their plans in response to the forecast.”
