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Can an independent Europe better predict our more extreme weather?

Published: at 02:04 PM

After the US election result there has been a lot of talk about how Europe can grow more independent from the US.

Our Europe today is mortal,” “It can die and that depends solely on our choices,” “it’s today that Europe is between war and peace.” - French President Emmanuel Macron, APNews.

Really, a great many things are up for renewed attention for our independence:

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot on the extreme weather situations we’ve seen and how we could be better prepared and it got me thinking: Is that an example of an area we should develop our own independent technology?

Truly independent weather data modelling?

I am by no means a weather expert or have any background in Meteology and I do know we have amazing scientists at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and local weather agencies, but I can’t help but think (and fear) that, as with so many other areas, we are highly dependent on American technology and forecast techniques.

It’s an area I’d be curious to look more into as a European citizen. I think one way of approaching our growing problems, is a closer personal connection to weather data – not just through institutions. What kind of weather data is available for open analysis by Europeans? What kinds of methods are we applying to understand it and are we making our own observations on this data?

Could more people be engaged with weather forecast and analysis using AI?

Back in February I fell over this Vox mini-documentary on how AI can help us predict extreme weather. I was reminded of it again the other day, hearing of the catastrophe in Valencia. It would seem a lack of knowledge, ignorance and mistrust in the data was part of the big issue that lead to it going so horribly wrong.

I know AI has many issues, but, looking at the video, I wish we, as Europeans, could be more ambitious and entrepreneurial on these topics. I’m not talking about building our own AI models in the traditional sense (that’s a whole different conversation). I’m talking about building applications for things like weather analysis with the most powerful tools available and innovating on the technology itself, fully controlling the process – not depending on the US.

Is trust in our institutions a disadvantage for critical thinking?

Europeans have (comparatively) high trust in their governments and institutions and I know we have extremely talented people working in our research and science agencies, but is it time that more of the general European population starts building in this space?