back to article Nvidia, Lockheed team up to build digital twin of the Earth for climate researchers

When a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) climate simulation tool comes online in 2023, it'll have Nvidia digital twin technology and analytics wares from Lockheed Martin under the hood. Described by Nvidia as NOAA's first project of its kind, the Earth Observation Digital Twin (EODT) will be a …

  1. Ol'Peculier

    Missing some vital information.

    Who designed the fjords?

    Did they get an award for them?

    Is anybody missing two pet mice?

  2. Tron Silver badge

    Booked.

    My avatar has already booked a rather nice cottage there for two weeks next summer on AirBnB.

  3. Joe W Silver badge

    "First of its kind"

    It is displaying gridded data. Ok, on a pretty high resolution. And hopefully it has a nice and simple to use user interface, though even geographers[*] can work with ArcGIS (which I am scared of - but then I had no training in it) or many of the programs listed here: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/software.html

    Though a nice user interace will just lead to bad science. Don't get me started on the tendency of some people to use eigenvector decomposition and linear regression for everything, thanks to the KNMI climate explorer (which also does a ton of stuff, like visualising climate field data for you from many different data sets, observations, reconstruction, reanalyses, model runs. This one is (ok, last time I looked) simple to use.

    Some of them already make movies for you. I have seen them a few (ok, more than a few) years back in conferences (and I am guilty myself, though I used R for that).

    [*] sorry...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Digital Twin'

    The latest buzzword for a 'computer model'...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 'Digital Twin'

      If 20 Years Old = Latest.

      It'll be impressive to see real time sims of the Earth's climate. Which is the actual need/use/definition of a digital twin. Or is it, as you say AC, JAFCM ?

    2. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: 'Digital Twin'

      > The latest buzzword for a 'computer model'...

      A digital twin is specifically a computer model that is continually updated with sensor data to mirror its real world counterpart.

      So, you'd build a computer model of a building before you construct it. This model would let you you calculate and simulate temperature and airflow, for example. That's a model.

      A digital twin is taking that model and combining it with live data, such as sensor data from the security systems, what the actual weather is that day, and which staff are where.

      You might find that running costs are higher on Thursdays when the ambient temperature is below 10 degrees C, and that the front door is jammed open, and Bob the receptionist is on duty.

  5. vtcodger Silver badge

    ???

    This sure looks like the Reg's reworking of a press release written by a "Communication Specialist" who has next to no idea what what the tech people are telling him about their system. It's possible that the system is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But it's hard to tell from the description how it differs from, for example -- https://ventusky.com Ventusky is kind of fun to play with BTW. It's a sort of Google Maps for current worldwide weather (not climate) with a bunch of overlays (temperature, wind, precipitation, etc) and some limited prediction capability

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