[comp.ai] References re AI in weather forecasting?

apl_aimh@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Marty Hall) (05/26/88)

Any pointers on where to look re AI in weather forecasting?  I have a couple
from AI in Engineering Proceedings, but can't find any others.  
     Thanks!                
                            - Marty Hall
-- 
ARPA - hall@bravo.cs.jhu.edu [hopkins-eecs-bravo.arpa]
UUCP   - ..seismo!umcp-cs!jhunix!apl_aimh | BITNET  - apl_aimh@jhunix.bitnet
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MS 100/601,  AAI Corp, PO Box 126,
Hunt Valley, MD  21030   (301) 683-6455

aboulang@bbn.com (Albert Boulanger) (05/27/88)

The Environmental sciences group at NOAA research labs in Boulder has
been holding a yearly meeting called AIRES (AI Research in
Environmental Science). I don't know if they are having a meeting this
year. A point of contact would be William Moninger at the NOAA Labs. I
attended the first one. The following is some info on projects that I
know of:

Synoptic Scale forecasting over Canada.
"Knowledge Representation in an Expert Storm Forecasting System"
Renee Ellio & Johannes de Haan
IJCAI 85
&
"Representing Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge in a Knowledge-Based
Storm-Forecasting System
Renee Ellio & Johannes de Haan
Int. J. Man-Machine Studies (1986) 25, 523-547

The survey (very brief!) paper you saw:
"Expert Systems in Meteorology"
Benoit Faller
AI in Engineering proceedings
Mentions the Canada work, fog forecasting, & Avalanche prediction

Severe thunderstorm forecasting.
"Validation of a Weather Forecasting Expert System"
Steven Zubrick, Radian Corp.
Machine Intelligence Workshop II Loch Lomond, Scotland, March 1985.
+
"RuleMaster: An Expert System to Aid in Severe Thunderstorm Forecasting"
Steven Zubrick & Charles Reise
14th Conference on Severe Local Storms, Indianapolis, IN, Oct. 29- Nov
1, 1985.

Downbust detection from doppler radar.
Steve Campbell MIT Lincoln Labs

Visibility prediction for airports.
Mark Stunder Geomet (Contract with AFGL Hanscomb AFB)

Some PROFS related work (ARCHER), William Moninger NOAA ERL.

Short term mesoscale forecasting (nowcasting) over the Cape Canaveral area
for NASA.
James Davis & Robert McArthur ADL Inc.

Solar flare forecasting (THEO).
Patrick McIntosh
NOAA Space Environmental Laboratory, Boulder.

Recognizing patterns from weather maps.
Bill Havens, University of British Columbia.

Downslope snowfall forecasting.
George Swetnam Mitre Corp & Richard Bunting UCAR.

There are of course other environment-related projects/ideas:
flood prediction, forest-fire modeling/prediction (Don Latham at the
BLM, Missoula Mont. is a point of contact here.)
I am sure I have left projects out.

Now the funding picture for weather expert systems in the USA. NOAA's
money is mostly for operational tasks.  They do conduct research, but
mostly in-house (PROFS for instance).  NASA is a possible source of
funding. ALBM project at DARPA has a weather forecasting component.
NEXRAD (joint military and NOAA) doppler radar project may have some
money. AWIPS 90 (next weather forecasting system for the 90's NOAA) has
a short description of expert system needs. FAA & BLM are also
possibilities. Perhaps the best possibility would be to build
nowcasting systems in the private sector.

My apologies for any errors in my listing.


Albert Boulanger
aboulanger@bbn.com
BBN Labs.
Albert Boulanger
BBN Labs Inc.
ABoulanger@bbn.com (arpa)
Phone: (617)873-3891