Air quality forecasting is getting better, thanks in part to AI. That’s good, given the health impact of air pollution. An environmental engineer explains how systems warn of incoming smog or smoke.
Extreme heat can put lives at risk, making accurate forecasts essential for people working outdoors.
FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images
In the future, our computer may be able to produce long-term forecasts in areas such as climate change, bushfires and financial markets – while being cheaper and more accessible than supercomputers.
A tornado touches down.
Morgan Schneider/OU CIMMS/NOAA NSSL
Researchers are turning to computer models, drones and other methods to improve tornado forecasting.
To find out how well social scientists can predict societal change, researchers ran the largest forecasting initiative in the field’s history. Here’s what they found.
(Shutterstock)
Sea-level rise isn’t the only climate-related problem for our coasts – extreme waves that cause flooding and erosion are also changing, but exactly how is hard to predict.
Following historic drought in 2021, reservoir levels dropped down in the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, which gets its waters from the melting snowpack from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming.
(pxhere.com)
Buying and selling stocks – with real or play money – is a way to harness the wisdom of the crowd about questions like who is going to win a competition.
Common hazel dispersing pollen in early spring.
Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Part of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for work modeling Earth’s climate using its chaotic, complex weather. To scientists, chaos lies in the gray zone between randomness and predictability.
New Orleans has about a 40% chance of getting hit by a tropical storm in any given year. Here’s how heat, winds and the shape of the seafloor raise the hurricane damage risk.
As the old joke goes, it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
Tetra Images via Getty Images
Many of the more formal models for predicting the pandemic try to understand why changes happen – but often it can be more accurate to ignore the reasons and simply look at the data.