Identification

Title

The history and practice of AI in the environmental sciences

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have become important tools for environmental scientists and engineers, both in research and in applications. Although these methods have become quite popular in recent years, they are not new. The use of AI methods began in the 1950s and environmental scientists were adopting them by the 1980s. Although an "AI winter" temporarily slowed the growth, a more recent resurgence has brought it back with gusto. This paper tells the story of the evolution of AI in the field through the lens of the AMS Committee on Artificial Intelligence Applications to Environmental Science. The environmental sciences possess a host of problems amenable to advancement by intelligent techniques. We review a few of the early applications along with the ML methods of the time and how their progression has impacted these sciences. While AI methods have changed from expert systems in the 1980s to neural networks and other data-driven methods, and more recently deep learning, the environmental problems tackled have remained similar. We discuss the types of applications that have shown some of the biggest advances due to AI usage and how they have evolved over the past decades, including topics in weather forecasting, probabilistic prediction, climate estimation, optimization problems, image processing, and improving forecasting models. We finish with a look at where AI as employed in environmental science appears to be headed and some thoughts on how it might be best blended with physical/dynamical modeling approaches to further advance our science.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d73200q5

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-05-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact