An intervention by Teresa Ribera at this international conference on big data and climate change, organized by the Spanish Ramon Areces Foundation.
Overview
By its nature, climate is one of the scientific areas best suited to investigations based on big data and cloud computing. By volume, speed and variability of the data generated, linked to climate science have in the big data an appropriate tool to meet the enormous challenges of modelling and monitoring the phenomenon of climate change.
The big data provides answers in different fields related to climate change. Weather forecasts and climate models, the relationship between climate change and food production, the effects on the economy or the prevention of phenomena and natural disasters (floods, earthquakes and tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, etc.) are some of the research areas supported in the implementation of big data and promoted by states and international organizations such as the UN or the European Union.
Firstly thanks to the data, it has been possible to identify evidence of change in meteorological records, dates of flowering of different plants and crops or migration of birds and other animals. But big data tools are not only useful in providing information and data for the characterization of change. The big data and new computer tools have driven everything related to the generation of climate models. Models used to study the dynamics of weather and climate system to projections of future climate.
