Tag: Environment

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How AI can help scientists head off water woes

Screenshot showing interactive map generated in response to AI query: "Show me the drought condition in North America for August 2012"
A screenshot shows how Hydrology Copilot can turn a simple query into an interactive, color-coded map. (Microsoft Infographic)

Microsoft and NASA say they’re applying artificial intelligence to a challenge that has become increasingly urgent: how to cope with flooding and other disasters driven by extreme weather.

The result of their efforts is Hydrology Copilot, a set of AI agents aimed at making hydrological data easier to access and analyze. The platform is built on the foundation that was established for NASA Earth Copilot, a cloud-based AI tool that can sift through petabytes of Earth science data.

Hydrology is the scientific study of Earth’s water cycle, which encompasses precipitation, runoff, evaporation and the movement of water through rivers, lakes and soil. It’s not just an academic exercise: Hydrologic insights are put to use in fields ranging from agriculture to forestry to urban development.

“NASA has long produced advanced hydrology and land-surface datasets, powering breakthroughs in drought early-warning systems, environmental planning and environmental research,” Juan Carlos López, a senior solution specialist at Microsoft who focuses on space and AI, wrote in a blog post. “Yet despite their value, these datasets and the specialized tools required to navigate and interpret them remain difficult to access for many who could benefit most.”

That’s where Hydrology Copilot comes in: Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Foundry, the platform lets researchers query NASA’s data using straightforward questions — for example, “Which regions may be facing elevated flood risk?”

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Fiction Science Club

Climate-fiction thriller explores Florida’s flooded future

Detail from "Salvagia" book cover
The cover art for "Salvagia" features a semi-sentient boat and "atmo-breaker" rockets. (Artwork: Steve Thomas for Diversion Books)

How will technology — and society — adapt to the dramatic effects that climate change is expected to bring? Will necessity become the mother of invention in a world of rising seas? Will it be business as usual? Or will it be a little bit of both those scenarios?

A new sci-fi novel called “Salvagia” takes the third way: There are high-tech salvagers who make ends meet by dredging up artifacts from the flooded ruins of Miami. There are high-flying daredevils who race rockets through minefields of space junk.  And there are also greedy folks who dream of using massive machines to build high-rises on South Florida’s new coast.

Guess which ones are the bad guys.

The book’s author, Tim Chawaga, says he wanted to blend the glittery tech of our modern world with the gritty drama of a Florida noir crime novel. “I wanted it to be like street-level conversations about how individual people can use technology in more powerful ways,” he says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

“It’s characters who are outsiders, outside of institutions, trying to build something else. … It’s not likely that they will achieve that in a meaningful and significant way. Maybe at best, incremental. And that feels very noirish to me,” he says.

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Cosmic Environment

Mati Carbon wins top prize in carbon removal competition

African farmers holding Mati Carbon sign
Mati Carbon partners with smallholder farmers in Africa. (Mati Carbon Photo)

The $50 million grand prize in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, backed by billionaire Elon Musk, has gone to Mati Carbon — a nonprofit initiative that is pioneering an enhanced rock-weathering technology in India and Africa.

The XPRIZE program distributed a total of $100 million in prizes and support for competitors over the course of four years. Each of the teams was challenged to remove more than 1,000 net tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during the final year of the competition. Mati Carbon and the runner-up teams all achieved the goal.

Carbon removal is one of the options for addressing the human-caused rise in CO2 levels and the resulting effects on global climate, ranging from rising sea levels and melting glaciers to hotter heat waves, more frequent flooding and other types of extreme weather. Natural vegetation does the best job of converting CO2 into oxygen, but researchers are also turning to technology for an assist.

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GeekWire

NASA and Microsoft team up on AI guide to Earth data

Screenshot of Earth Copilot interface with image of hurricane
A screenshot shows Earth Copilot in action, guiding a computer user to data about Hurricane Harvey. (Image via Microsoft)

Microsoft and NASA have joined forces to develop Earth Copilot, a software tool that uses artificial intelligence and cloud computing to simplify the process of searching and analyzing Earth science data.

The collaboration is part of NASA’s Transform to Open Science Initiative, which aims to make more than 100 petabytes of satellite imagery and other Earth science data more readily available to scientists, educators, policymakers and the general public.

“The vision behind this collaboration was to leverage AI and cloud technologies to bring Earth’s insights to communities that have been underserved, where access to data can lead to tangible improvements,” Minh Nguyen, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, said today in a blog posting about the project. “By enabling users to interact with the data through simple, plain language queries, we’re helping to democratize access to spaceborne information.”

Tyler Bryson, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for U.S. health and public sector industries, said Earth Copilot lets users interact with NASA’s data repository conversationally.

Bryson noted that the sheer scale and complexity of the information gathered for NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems Program can sometimes make finding the right information a daunting task. Earth Copilot doesn’t require users to navigate highly technical interfaces or master the intricacies of geospatial analysis.

“Instead, they can simply ask questions such as ‘What was the impact of Hurricane Ian in Sanibel Island?’ or ‘How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect air quality in the U.S.?’” Bryson said. “AI will then retrieve relevant datasets, making the process seamless and intuitive.”

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GeekWire

Clean-tech pioneer First Mode braces for more layoffs

Mining truck at First Mode's proving grounds in Centralia
A hybrid mining truck takes a test drive through First Mode’s Centralia proving grounds. (First Mode via X)

First Mode, a Seattle-based company that’s concentrating on reducing carbon emissions in mining and other heavy industries, has alerted its employees to a significant round of layoffs that’s expected to unfold in early August.

A memo sent out today to U.S. employees doesn’t specify how many will be laid off — and emphasized that “individual determinations are still in process.” But First Mode told me in an email that the layoffs could amount to as much as 50% of the company’s global workforce.

In the memo to employees, chief people officer Mornie Robertson said the total number of impacted workers in the U.S. “will be large enough” to obligate First Mode to provide all U.S. employees with notification under the terms of the WARN Act. That blanket 60-day advance notification accompanied today’s memo.

“Impacted employees will be notified the week of August 5,” Robertson wrote.

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GeekWire

NASA boosts four proposed climate science missions

Graphic charting extent of ozone hole on world map
A color-coded image based on satellite data shows the extent of the Antarctic ozone hole in September 2023. (ESA / DLR Graphic)

NASA has selected four proposals for climate science missions, including an effort led by a University of Washington researcher, to go forward for further study with millions of dollars in funding.

STRIVE, which has UW atmospheric scientist Lyatt Jaeglé as its principal investigator, would focus on interactions between the stratosphere and the troposphere.

“STRIVE would allow us to see the composition and temperature of the atmosphere with much finer detail than previously possible from space,” Jaeglé told me in an email. “It would enable us to observe how smoke from fires and volcanoes affect the ozone layer. It would give us needed information to understand how the troposphere and stratosphere interact, and how these interactions influence weather, climate and air quality.”

Jaeglé said “the entire STRIVE team is very excited at the prospect of moving forward in this next step to prepare the concept study.”

The three other studies winning support from NASA’s new Earth System Explorers Program are ODYSEA, EDGE and Carbon-I. Each of the science teams for the four selected proposals will receive $5 million to conduct a one-year concept study.

After the study period, NASA will choose two of the proposals to go forward to launch, with readiness dates expected in 2030 and 2032. For each chosen investigation, the mission cost will be capped at $310 million. That figure doesn’t include launch costs, which will be covered by NASA.

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GeekWire

First Mode’s clean-tech factory uses smart tech as well

Ribbon-cutting ceremony at First Mode factory
First Mode CEO Julian Soles wields a giant scissors at a factory ribbon-cutting ceremony with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to the right and Albert Gore, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, to the left. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

There’s not much that’s bolted down the floor of the 40,000-square-foot factory in Seattle’s SoDo district where First Mode plans to build powertrain conversion kits for mining trucks — and that’s by design.

“The factory itself represents the latest in smart manufacturing,” First Mode CEO Julian Soles said during today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in attendance. “It’s ‘software-defined’ rather than a hard-point-constrained facility. Nearly every components shelf and assembly sequence is digitized for maximum speed and data management.”

If the production requirements change, the floor plan can change accordingly. First Mode is also taking advantage of digital tools for tracking the supply chain.

“Every workstation, every inventory location, every product that moves through the facility is equipped with a bar code and has a digital twin,” Philipp Nonnast, senior global supply manager for First Mode, explained during a factory tour.

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GeekWire

How satellites and AI work together to monitor the planet

Screengrab of global imagery map from Satlas
Satlas’ AI modeling software improves satellite image resolution by a factor of four. (AI2 / Satlas Image)

Geospatial data analysis promises to revolutionize the way agriculture, urban planning and disaster relief is done — and thanks to a variety of projects that make use of artificial intelligence, Microsoft and Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI are part of that revolution.

The Allen Institute for AI, also known as AI2, recently rolled out Satlas, a new software platform for exploring global geospatial data generated from satellite imagery. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab is working with public and private institutions in Colombia on Project Guacamaya, which uses AI tools to monitor and understand conditions in the Amazon Rainforest.

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Airlines join Boeing’s team to work on eco-friendly plane

Planned livery for X-66A airplane
X-66A Transonic Truss-Braced Wing aircraft

Boeing and NASA say they’ll collaborate with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and four other major airlines on the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, which aims to put Boeing’s innovative X-66 braced-wing aircraft design through flight tests in the 2028-2029 time frame.

The X-66A makes use of a concept known as the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing, or TTBW, which features ultra-long, ultra-thin, drag-reducing wings that are stabilized by diagonal struts.

The demonstrator aircraft will also incorporate parallel advancements in propulsion systems, materials and system architecture. When all those factors are combined, the single-aisle X-66A should reduce fuel requirements and carbon emissions by up to 30% relative to today’s domestic airplane fleet.

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GeekWire

First Mode goes all in on clean energy for heavy industry

Zero-emission haul truck
This ore-hauling truck is powered by a hydrogen-fueled powerplant. (First Mode / Anglo American Photo)

Seattle-based First Mode and Anglo American have closed a complicated $1.5 billion transaction that will remake First Mode as a clean-energy company for heavy industry — and shift its headquarters to London.

Anglo American, a global mining company, is now First Mode’s majority shareholder. The change of status was reflected in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which reported a $1.184 billion equity offering sold to Anglo American. That’s in addition to a $200 million cash injection that Anglo American is providing, First Mode spokeswoman Colleen Rubart told me in an email.

Rubart said the balance of the $1.5 billion comes in the form of contributions of intellectual property, contracts, facilities and other assets from both of the parties involved in the deal. The deal closed on Jan. 5, she said.

The business combination, which was announced last year, blends First Mode’s engineering operation with Anglo American’s nuGen effort to develop a zero-emission system for hauling ore. First Mode created the hydrogen-fueled hybrid powerplant for Anglo American’s nuGen mining truck, which made its debut in South Africa last year as the world’s largest zero-emission vehicle.

Going forward, First Mode will supply nuGen systems to Anglo American. The project will include the retrofit of about 400 ultra-class haul trucks with First Mode’s powerplant, plus the provision of infrastructure for hydrogen production, refueling and battery recharging.

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