Climate Change

    Climate change in Italy and Europe is leading to a progressive increase in extreme weather events, with repercussions on all social and economic activities: roads, tourism, agricultural and industrial production, renewable energy, people’s health and safety.

    More accurate weather models and intelligent warning systems are able to improve the resilience of affected areas and production activities. To do this, the application of artificial intelligence and big data models is required.

    Strenghts of the FBK model

    Always active in environmental modeling, in the last 5 years FBK has built a dense network of relationships with national and international organizations and companies for the research and development of weather models, in particular of extreme events.

    The Foundation pursues an inclusive collaboration model, where FBK‘s expertise in artificial intelligence and big data is supported by public/private weather agencies and companies, for the creation of models and projects with operational implications on the local area, both for residents and for specific areas of application (renewable production, agriculture, tourism, mobility).

    Technologies and related fields of application 

    • AI-based weather forecast: Nowcasting and short-term forecasting
      FBK is engaged in the research of artificial intelligence techniques for the improvement of weather forecasts in the very short (0-6 hours) and in the short (6 – 24 hours) term. These approaches aim both at improving the spatial and temporal resolution of the forecasts and their temporal extension.
    • Early warning systems
      FBK is engaged in the research and development of warning systems for the population and categories exposed to environmental risk, capable of aggregating and processing multiple data sources in real time. In particular, the technologies developed by FBK in this area focus on the development of fully automated intelligent alert systems, capable of providing personalized alerts for each individual user through various distribution channels (web, chatbot, email, sms texts).

    Major Projects

    • The MIARAD project aims to improve regional meteorological nowcasting capabilities for Emilia-Romagna. The project involves the development of a 1km resolution nowcasting system aimed at early warning (15-60 minutes lead time) of extreme weather events, which uses Deep Learning (DL) methods applied to multiple data sources, such as radar. weather, lightning, pluviometric network, and environmental variables. The project will also study a blending model between DL nowcasting algorithms and physical models, to obtain real-time forecasts up to 6 hours.
    • In “Meteotrentino early warning” FBK has developed a fully automated multi-channel alert system (Chat, SMS, Email, Web) for extreme weather events to be sent to civil protection operators throughout Trentino, to allow rapid response capabilities in case of hazardous events that could harm the population. The system is fully operational and uses weather stations and radar for real-time monitoring; it also integrates rain forecasts through nowcasting based on FBK’s AI and numerical model, which are used to alert about predicted events.