The Forum on Earth Observations

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The Forum on Earth Observations (September 22-23,
2004) Panel 6 Moving Forward Lloyd
Treinish IBM Thomas J. Watson Research
Center Yorktown Heights, NY lloydt_at_us.ibm.com http
//www.research.ibm.com/weather http//www.researc
h.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt
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Panel 6 Moving Forward

• We are a small weather modelling group at IBM
  Research focusing on understanding of mesoscale
  weather as it relates to weather-sensitive
  operations and decision support, and developing
  solutions for such applications
• Consider end-to-end (data to users to data)
  issues and systems
• Evaluate both meteorological and business value
  beyond physical realism
• Evaluate the level of practicality and usability
  at reasonable cost
• Deploy prototype business applications with
  actual end users
• Understand the implications of implementations,
  including a focus on high-performance computing,
  visualization and system integration
• There are a number of other, larger efforts
  within IBM focusing on a number of relevant
  research and development topics, including
• Modelling and analytics to enable transformation
  of business processes to become more proactive
  (more than simply sense and respond)
• Computing systems, software and infrastructure to
  address significant scalability issues inherent
  with the new observing systems
• Fundamental physics and computer science for
  future sensor design, data utilization,
  information technology, etc.
• Understanding long-term implications of
  environmental changes on business

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An Integrated Approach

• Critical, Linked Challenges
• Usability Are the data relevant and usable for
  decision makers in weather- climate- and
  environmentally-sensitive applications?
• Scalability Can we process and manage data in a
  timely and cost-effective manner?
• We need to avoid a mismatch between the
  compelling sophistication of the observing
  technology and the science vs. how the data need
  should be utilized
• We need to consider the end-to-end system
  integration so that the data being acquired
  answer the right questions

Processing, Analysis and Assimilation of Data
Focused Environmental Modelling(e.g., Local
Weather)
Usable Visualized Products
Advanced Visualization

• Identification of time and location of "events"
• Analysis of impact on production, population,
  assets
• Expense vs. effectiveness of countermeasures
• Optimized planning, scheduling, routing

"Business" Processing

• Dispersion Modelling
• Road Surface Modelling
• Electricity Demand Forecasting
• Airline Schedule Repair
• Wildfire Propagation
• Flood Forecasting

"Business" Data Ingest

• Demographics
• History
• Financials

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To Move Forward and Enable an Integrated Approach
Also Requires Both

• Appropriate visualization to enable acquired
  and derived (e.g., model) data to be usable
• Some methods are available, but not widely used
  nor adequately scaled
• Understanding of how the relevant data need to be
  used and why (e.g., human factors concerning how
  users work and interact)
• Understanding of how users perceive and interpret
  visualizations
• Data must be made relevant for different classes
  of users using their terminology, and thus,
  expressible in terms that can be readily
  understood in real-time without expert
  interpretation
• Effective coupling to derived modelling and
  analysis that maps to the end-user problem
• How to couple and overcome an inherent impedance
  mismatch is unclear
• May be a direct match to relevant physical
  problems (e.g., pavement, dispersion)
• May be a direct match to relevant operational
  problems (e.g., crew and equipment optimization
  scheduling and routing that is impacted by
  environmental factors)