How Technology is Fighting Climate Change
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How Technology is Fighting Climate Change

Government CIO Outlook | Tuesday, August 27, 2019

AI is taking the lead to assist scientists in building a rigid structure that can sense and study from the environmental conditions and help people in meeting definite objectives.

FREMONT, CA: From increasingly frequent heat waves to biodiversity loss, climate change is impacting societies across the world, providing a preview of an uncertain climate future. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and applied data science have the potential to advance the understanding to address climate change efficiently.

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IoT Solutions

Green buildings are one way IoT could radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is recognized that cities effect in three-fourth of the world’s carbon dioxide production, so the potential for ecological impact on the rise of green building construction is enormous. The integration of IoT offers real-time data to enhance the buildings’ facility cost. Furthermore, green buildings also lessen the ecological impact by increasing green space in cities, using eco-friendly building materials, and to resourcefully reduce travel time.

Since most population lives in the city, it becomes significant for organizations to make the energy their efficient. Smart cities can use IoT systems to improve congestion to reduce time spent in cars, provide dependable public transit, and secure ample water supply. Moreover, the ports can also execute energy-saving measures to encourage remote working and monitor pollution and waste.

IoT is pertinent for farming communities as well because, with the rising population, farmers will need to cultivate more food and do so via more sustainable methods. The existing farming methods utilize water at an alarming rate, which effects in soil degradation. Integration of IoT technologies like sensors that collect data about weather, soil moisture, and fertilization levels, can help farmers optimize the irrigation and production. Self-driven tractors, on the other hand, will aid in taking care of drilling, seeding, and spraying to cut human labor time.

Lastly, IoT also protects biodiversity in more than one way. The system helps in identifying and preventing illegal logging, while several other wildlife preservations are using connected cameras to supervise large wild areas and illegal poaching and hunting.

Carbon Capture Technologies

Most scientists are discovering new carbon capture technologies as reforestation takes more time to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere. The technology helps in fields like oil, coal, or gas plants in either post or pre-combustion stages to store carbon dioxide under the storage tanks and to recycle it into the usable fuel. With more solutions, technology has the potential to change the setting of conventional energy production as a balance to shift to renewable energy production.

Use of Big Data

One of the key features of data science is that it offers robust information and presents ways to broadcast statistics to the public. With big data, scientists can understand the present and past of environmental and weather conditions. The knowledge helps them to set up positive trends so that people know what is coming ahead of them and how to act.

The data that is produced by IoT systems can assist in conserving water and energy. The information also facilitates experts to develop visualizations on climate change that better communicate the actual state of affairs to the people. One challenge to getting broad buy-in for climate-friendly policies is the lack of data visualization. The field also helps intensify the knowledge of how different industries supply to climate change and where the most crucial environmental shifts like deforestation are taking place. The reason behind understanding the variations is so that policymakers and scientists can take decisive actions. Big data’s computation of tree loss over the past decade was one-fourth of the global quantity and that due to commercial deforestation.

AI

One key challenge when attending to climate change is to know the trends and the impact of climate change on humans. AI is taking the lead to assist scientists in building a rigid structure that can sense and study from the environmental conditions and support people to meet definite objectives.

Climate modeling, which is used as a quantitative method helps in simulating the interactions of the significant drivers of climate, comprising atmosphere, land surface, oceans, land surface, and ice. The technology allows researchers to foresee how the surroundings will react to the variables such as carbon levels in the air. Also, AI makes known the possible measures that can be taken to safeguard the susceptible populace. The tool furthermore will be of assistance to enhance climate change solutions and policy. Besides, AI supports analysts and market researchers to understand the complex phenomena; from power grids to climate change. As more technologies are integrated, machine learning will let know of the data statistically to recommend efficient adaptation schemes. Scientists can make use of machine learning to quickly test how the theories will work in real-time to recognize the paramount interventions. For instance, one project analyzes environmental data and tests the supposed outcomes of pollution-reducing tactics.

As various fields come together, climate research will be more useful to produce on-target policy changes, quickly enough to save the environment from the looming climate catastrophe.

See Also: Club Caddie

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