Reference News Network, December 25 report: According to the Bloomberg News website on December 23, China is striving to become a meteorological power, accelerating actions to reduce its reliance on European data sets and promoting locally developed data sets to adapt to the era of AI-driven weather forecasting.

The ERA5 (the fifth generation of atmospheric reanalysis data set from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) is regarded as the benchmark for climate data, providing detailed information on rainfall, temperature, and wind over more than 80 years. So far, it has been the cornerstone of the AI revolution in the weather forecasting field. Some leading AI models in China use it for training.

The report states that reliance on foreign data contradicts Beijing's pursuit of security and technological self-reliance. China also views meteorological data as a key pillar of its meteorological ambitions, and is intensifying efforts to develop and share "high-value data."

"Weather forecasting is related to national security," said Andreas Prein, professor at ETH Zurich and expert in weather and climate modeling, "if completely dependent on external data, it would make itself vulnerable."

A statement released by the National Data Administration of China in September pointed out that part of the reason for developing domestic data sets was to "break China's dependence on European and American reanalysis products in meteorological operations."

In the same month, the China Meteorological Administration opened download access to the new global atmospheric reanalysis product CMA-RA V1.5 for the first time globally. The agency stated that some AI meteorological models in the country have already used this data set for training.

Professor Hui Su, an atmospheric science professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, uses Chinese data to train regional AI models and evaluate numerical models at her weather technology startup, StarCloud Intelligence. She said one advantage of CMA-RA V1.5 is its grid resolution is higher than that of ERA5.

The report states that using this product made in China may help develop a more advanced market for hedging against climate risks - an industry more prominent in the US and Europe.

David Whitehead, head of meteorological risk management at Finnish company Vaisala, said, "If the international market can get more data from China, many companies will want to participate in the design and brokerage of weather derivative contracts."

Dick Dei, co-founder of Planetary A Consulting, said from a technical perspective, China's data lags about 15 years behind. Dei played a key role in the development of ERA5 during his time at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

However, Remy Gondouin, product development manager at Danish engineering consulting firm C2Wind, pointed out that ERA5 itself also has some biases and shortcomings.

Gondouin said, "In the future, people will benefit from multiple data sets rather than just one." (Translated by Zhao Feifei)

Original: toutiao.com/article/7587625127907557888/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author."