IBM Deep Thunder
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Deep Thunder is a research project by IBM that aims to improve short-term local
weather forecasting Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...
through the use of
high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...
. It is part of IBM's ''Deep Computing'' initiative that also produced the
Deep Blue Deep Blue may refer to: Film * ''Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads'', a 1992 documentary film about Mississippi Delta blues music * Deep Blue (2001 film), ''Deep Blue'' (2001 film), a film by Dwight H. Little * Deep Blue (2003 ...
chess computer Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...
. Deep Thunder is intended to provide local, high-resolution weather predictions customized to weather-sensitive specific business operations. For example, it could be used to predict the wind velocity at an Olympic diving platform, destructive thunderstorms, and combined with other physical models to predict where there will be flooding, damaged power lines and algal blooms. The project is now headquartered at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.


History

The Deep Thunder project is headed by Lloyd Treinish, who joined IBM in 1990, after working for 12 years at
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's
Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...
. The project began in 1995 as an outgrowth of a project designed to help provide accurate weather forecasts for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In collaboration with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
, IBM scientists built one of the first parallel processing supercomputers to be used for weather modeling, based on the IBM RS/6000 SP. It was installed at the
National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
office in Peachtree City, Georgia, in 1996, where it ran for several months and produced multiple forecasts daily. After a few years of development, the team set up an implementation in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 2001 to test the project. The group is currently working on establishing the Rio de Janeiro operations center. The name Deep Thunder arose after the
IBM Deep Blue Deep Blue was a chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer. It was the first computer to win a game, and the first to win a match, against a reigning world champion under regular time controls. Developmen ...
system played and defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in May, 1997. In the following November, a journalist used the name Deep Thunder in an article, which stuck with the developers. Current members of Deep Thunder are Lloyd Treinish, Anthony Praino, Campbell Watson and Mukul Tewari.


Technology

Deep Thunder uses a 3D telescoping grid where data from one model feeds into another and is verified with historical data. For example, they start with a global model from
NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
, and as they zoom in the resolution decreases exponentially, down to models with resolutions of 1 kilometer, and sometimes as small as 1 meter. Using this method, IBM can cut down on the amount of processing required. IBM uses many sources of data to feed Deep Thunder, including public satellite sources, and many other private sources, as well as whatever local sensors and data a location, may have. The
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computer system will be used to generate the Deep Thunder weather forecasts. Input data will be collected from over 200,000 Weather Underground personal weather stations,
weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asynchronously), or ge ...
data,
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barometer and data from other sources.


Applications


Utility Companies

IBM worked with a North American utility company that has over 90,000 poles, wires, and transformers to develop a prediction service that can pinpoint where incoming storms will bring down trees and power lines. The service can be used to call in the needed number of repair crews and station them near where the damage will occur, drastically decreasing downtime.


Agriculture

Deep Thunder could be used to determine optimal times to plant, irrigate, and harvest crops, based on the dynamic environmental conditions of individual farm locations. Precision agriculture using Deep Thunder could lead to better price points for crops by saving water, allocating labor more effectively, and improving supply chain efficiency. Using these methods of predictive weather farming, crop losses from the weather can be cut by over 25%. The island nation of
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
is working with Deep Thunder to develop precision weather forecast models to increase rice production.


In The Olympics

Deep Thunder was used during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games to accurately predict that there would be no rain during the closing ceremony.


The Jefferson Project

The Jefferson Project at
Lake George (New York) Lake George, New York may refer to one of several locations in New York State in the United States: *Lake George (lake), New York *Lake George (town), New York *Lake George (village), New York, which sits within the town of Lake George See also * ...
is a global example of sustained protection of freshwater ecosystems. The project uses Deep Thunder to predict the weather at an unprecedented 333 m resolution, simulating complex airflow patterns over the lake that are crucial to lake currents and nutrient cycling.


New York

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
was the first city to test a full-scale implementation of Deep Thunder. IBM is experimenting with using a mobile app to distribute location-specific predictions and issue alerts. Data from the app can be used by maintenance crews to determine if wind levels are too high to work, or it could be used to get a weather forecast at a certain address.


Rio de Janeiro

IBM is currently expanding the project to
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
to predict floods, and anticipate where storms might trigger mudslides. The city is collaborating with IBM on a multimillion-dollar plan to improve emergency responsiveness, by providing comprehensive information about rainfall estimates, wind speed and direction, probabilities of landslides and floods to responders. It is expected to be utilized during the
2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...
and
2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...
.


Dublin, Ireland

The Dublin City Council is working with IBM to help make
Dublin, Ireland Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...
, the third city in the world to implement the Deep Thunder forecasting model in an attempt to predict and issue warnings about incoming flash floods that are impacting businesses and homeowners.


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Deep Thunder IBM supercomputers