“Researchers have built an artificial intelligence-based weather forecast that makes faster and more accurate predictions than the best system available today.

GenCast, an AI weather program from Google DeepMind, performed up to 20% better than the ENS forecast from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), widely regarded as the world leader.

In the near term, GenCast is expected to support traditional forecasts rather than replace them, but even in an assistive capacity it could provide clarity around future cold blasts, heatwaves and high winds, and help energy companies predict how much power they will generate from windfarms.

In a head-to-head comparison, the program churned out more accurate forecasts than ENS on day-to-day weather and extreme events up to 15 days in advance, and was better at predicting the paths of destructive hurricanes and other tropical cyclones, including where they would make landfall.”

From Axios.

“As experts struggle to improve their models for hurricane prediction, the City University of Hong Kong researchers focused specifically on the prediction of the boundary layer wind field—the region of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface, where human activity and storm impact converge.

‘We human beings are living in this boundary layer, so understanding and accurately modeling it is essential for storm forecasting and hazard preparedness,’ Li said in a recent statement.

Modeling the boundary layer is particularly difficult because it involves interactions between air, land, ocean, and surface-level structures. Traditional forecasting methods rely on massive numerical simulations performed on supercomputers, incorporating vast observational data. Despite these efforts, predictions often fall short of the precision needed for effective disaster response.”

From The Debrief.

“When Hurricane Helene knocked out the power in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Dustin Baker, like many other people across the Southeast, turned to a backup power source. His just happened to be an electric pickup truck. Over the weekend, Baker ran extension cords from the back of his Ford F-150 Lightning, using the truck’s battery to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It worked so well that Baker became an energy Good Samaritan. ‘I ran another extension cord to my neighbor so they could run two refrigerators they have,’ he told me.

Americans in hurricane territory have long kept diesel-powered generators as a way of life, but electric cars are a leap forward. An EV, at its most fundamental level, is just a big battery on wheels that can be used to power anything, not only the car itself. Some EVs pack enough juice to power a whole home for several days, or a few appliances for even longer. In the aftermath of Helene, as millions of Americans were left without power, many EV owners did just that. A vet clinic that had lost power used an electric F-150 to keep its medicines cold and continue seeing patients during the blackout. One Tesla Cybertruck owner used his car to power his home after his entire neighborhood lost power.”

From The Atlantic.

“Astronomers have been crying out for a better instrument to scan the stars to find these asteroids before they find us. Fortunately, they’re about to get two.

The first is Nasa’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor, mission. It’s essentially a sniper that is going to be hidden in outer space. Within 10 years of being launched, it will find 90% or more of those city-killer asteroids that have yet to be found by conventional means…

It is to be launched sometime in the next five years. And when it does, it will already have a ground-based partner tallying up its own near-Earth asteroid count: the Vera C Rubin Observatory, under construction now in the mountains of Chile.

Unlike NEO Surveyor, Rubin is not a dedicated asteroid hunter, and it relies on reflected starlight, not infrared emissions. But it has the most technologically advanced mechanical eye ever made. With a colossal mirror that collects even the faintest, most distant starlight, and a 3,200-megapixel digital camera the size of a car, it will see and chronicle anything that moves in the dark sky above, from distant exploding stars to interstellar comets.

It will also create a detailed inventory of pretty much everything in the solar system, including the host of objects flying around close to our planet. The first asteroid was spotted in 1801, and it took two centuries to find a million more. In the first six months of operations, which begin in 2025, Rubin will double that number. It is, in other words, a polymathic telescope; one that, among all its other tasks, will find asteroids of all shapes and sizes faster than any other spotter on Earth.”

From The Guardian.