re: IBM introducing the World's Highest-Resolution Global Weather Forecasting Model

quote:

---

NAM.

---

The only easy day....was yesterday

quote:

---

For hurricanes it probably just moves the cone earlier and more often than current models to gain accuracy.

---

I bet it's optimized for triangle math, too.

quote:

---

The kicker is that you don't need huge computers to do the modeling. Once the training is complete the forecast run in 1/10 of the time.

---

On what data? That's the problem you seemed to have glossed over and why physics-based modeling is never going away. It's not the physics and our ability to accurately model the phenomena, it's obtaining and processing the vast amounts of data. It's a granularity problem, like modeling solid objects in CAE software, the size of the mesh determines the precision of the output, but using a finer mesh requires an exponential increase in the number of equations that need to be solved. Machine learning isn't going to solve what is fundamentally a hardware problem.

quote:

---

On what data? That's the problem you seemed to have glossed over and why physics-based modeling is never going away. It's not the physics and our ability to accurately model the phenomena, it's obtaining and processing the vast amounts of data. It's a granularity problem, like modeling solid objects in CAE software, the size of the mesh determines the precision of the output, but using a finer mesh requires an exponential increase in the number of equations that need to be solved. Machine learning isn't going to solve what is fundamentally a hardware problem.

---

Yes and no. Software right now is what is helping to move Infrastructue (server and storage) technology capabilities forward despite the diminishing returns/ending of Moore’s law. Go look at IBM technology...hell, look at what Intel/AMD/NVidia is having to manipulate for their gains. It’s software and GPU’s that are driving AI/ML/DL and and it’s why infrastructure technology matters.

However, you’re right in that current classical based High Performance Computing (HPC and GPU) + AI/ML and Current SW Dev have their limitations (which we’re still not hitting - yet) . That is until quantum computing is unleashed in scale to the market ...which is 3-5 years away from being commercially available to all enterprise companies outside of just a handful that are in private bleeding edge partnerships with the few (less than three) tech companies who actually have Quantum h/w up and going today.

So is this like the IBM smarter planet initiative or the IBM Watson is going to change the way businesses work initiative?

I can almost guarantee this will be all bark and no bite.

If they are able to come up with an extended accurate forecast that stretches to 21 days instead of the current 7 days that would be a gamechanger. I am skeptical with it being IBM and their propensity to hype the crud out of everything they do.

IBM also purchased Weather Underground and promptly proceeded to run that site and the WunderMap app into the ground while taking away historical gage data/functionality and putting it behind a pay wall.

Some more background on what they did to Weather Underground's WunderMap, which they are using for this analysis…

Once upon a time a couple years ago, Weather Underground set up a system so people who owned private weather stations could connect with to see their own data and others gage data and put it in WunderMap application for free. Great site for looking at historical rainfall data.

Fast forward a couple years ago and IBM buys Weather Underground. They proceed to strip the historical data from the site beyond a year, and start charging people for access to data and they don't even own the devices. Now they are trying to leverage it further for more profit. And they are throwing so many ads on the Weather Underground pages that it makes it glacial to navigate.

quote:

---

I thought the weather channel bought weather underground? Regardless, what they have done to the “storm” app is an embarrassment.

---

IBM bought Weather Underground and Weather.com in 2015 (but not The Weather Channel).