Artificial intelligence will be “key” to mitigate the impacts of climate change, according to study

The study has been carried out to deepen the understanding of extreme climatic phenomena –inundaciones, droughts, forest fires and heat waves -, in the face of the development of more reliable and precise prediction systems.

The ultimate goal of work is contribute to improve responses to this type of catastrophes and contribute efficacy to your communication according to a statement from the University of Valencia (UV).

The devastating floods that whipped Valencia last October, the forest fires that the angels have devastated in January or the latest heat waves and unprecedented droughts in Europe are just some recent examples of how climatic extremes become increasingly frequent and intense , as manifested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations in its latest report.

Faced with this global challenge, a study published in Nature Communications, led by UV Professor Gustau Camps-Valls, It proposes the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a key tool not only to predict but also to understand and mitigate the impact of extreme climatic phenomena on the nature and life of people.

The article analyzes the way in which AI is moving forward the weather prediction systems, the early detection of extreme events and impact forecast; and is providing the possibility of providing understandable and transparent explanations that provide confidence for decision making before such climatic phenomena.

“These works show that AI is not only a tool to improve weather predictions, but an ally to estimate its impacts, understand the climatic extremes and communicate risks effectively,” said Gustau Camps-Valls, physical, professor of electronic engineering of the UV and researcher at the Image & Signal Processing (ISP), in the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of the University from València.

The work shows how AI has reached a certain degree of maturity in the meteorological prediction, the detection and modeling of extreme phenomenaas well as in risk communication through advanced chatbots, largely thanks to deep learning (Deep Learning), statistical modeling and satellite data processing, in situ measurements and climatic simulations.

The growing frequency and intensity of these phenomena due to climate change is providing more data with which to train AI systems, which in turn allows to improve its ability to anticipate future events and adapt their predictions to the new conditions of the planet.

“Thanks to AI, we not only improve the detection of extreme phenomena, but we also better understand its causes and consequences. This allows us to make more responsible and informed decisions-explained Camps-Valls-. We are laying the foundations for a technology that not only analyzes data, but can also change lives and protect our planet. However, it is essential that these tools be inclusive, ethical and accessible to all communities, ”he concluded.