Global Warming and Climate Change

The IPCC released its latest report where it concluded with high confidence that human induced emission of greenhouse gases had caused global warming, with the average global surface temperature 1.1C above pre-industrial average. It also projected that under current emission scenarios that a 1.5C warming will be reached in the near term (rather than end of this century)  and points out that “every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards”. The regional impacts of the warming are depicted under various warming scenarios and it is clear that it is not uniform across the world. It is also evident that all sections of society are impacted by the changing weather patterns and it is vital that we understand, anticipate and adapt to them.

Changing Patterns = Changing Risk

Most people who have lived in a specific area for a reasonable length of time have some instinct for seasonal weather patterns. With more accurate weather forecasts and even better delivery mechanisms via apps, people are better prepared for day-to-day variability than ever (though there are gaps in several countries). Even when it comes to extreme weather,   short-term prediction and alerting is only improving. While we react and adapt to day-to-day variability,  understanding the nature of the variability is vital for systems that support society. 

Specifically, are these extreme events becoming more frequent and more severe?  Are they the same as they were when the infrastructure was originally designed or last modified? Are heat waves more frequent and stronger to warrant change in building codes? If any of these statements are true, then the assumptions baked into the design of our infrastructure may not hold  and alters the risk associated with their failure. As one would expect, there are existing mechanisms to assess and act on this risk.

Understanding weather patterns

The private sector in major industries ((re)insurance, commodities trading, risk management, agriculture, construction, logistics) that have been traditionally sensitive to weather patterns do have mechanisms in place to track and quantify them, but they are not readily available or affordable (many consultancies exist to address weather risk) to the growing number of industries that need them today, at the rate they need them. Many businesses are more likely to be integrated with the world economy today and sensitive to changing global weather patterns. While they have an understanding of the impact of weather patterns to their operations and planning, non-trivial investment is still required for them to synthesize relevant information from raw weather data, especially on a continuous basis. 

Is this information available off the shelf?

Global organizations (IPCC) generate climate reports that are broad that aim to inform policy makers around the world. Government agencies (national weather services) generate reports that  serve specific countries. Of late, many provide interactive websites as well, but the roadmap of such efforts is unclear and often it is delivered as an end product rather than as a platform with an API. The reports are also often too infrequent to be actionable on a day-to-day basis for industries that may require insights to be both global and at a higher resolution. Researchers (academia or government) focus on understanding the mechanisms of extreme events, such as prominent  heat-waves or perform a study about extreme rainfall in a specific area. Again, productizing research is difficult and requires specific long term investment.

Given this state, we believe that there is an opportunity for  modern software platforms to provide high quality information about changing weather patterns in a manner that is reliable, cost-efficient  and relevant to both people and modern businesses. 

Weathersight

That is why we have built early versions of an interactive website and API that tracks and quantifies global weather patterns on a continuous basis. We have also attempted to make sense of shifting climate and extremes.  We have derived these insights  from multiple sources of current and historical weather observation and are in the process of incorporating more granular data sources. 

In a series of blog posts, we will talk a bit about our data sources and how we think of transparency. We will also take a deeper look at some of the functionality we offer today and what alternatives exist. Stay tuned!