I was recently at a WCRP leadership meeting and they are interested in starting an AI/ML and climate activity of some kind. Some of us pushed back on them to clarify why they want it (I don’t think they’re sure except it seems important, which is not in and of itself a great reason). My question to the group is, do you have any thought, suggestion or proposal on what a WCRP effort in this space might usefully achieve? Would it just add to the noise? Noting that the most successful WCRP thingys in the past have involved coordinating and focusing the community (their star achievement is probably CMIP). Ideas welcome! Also if you would like to be involved let me know (ideally you’d have an idea AND like to help execute it!)
I know of at least one effort within WCRP (within GEWEX-GLASS) that does this for a particular application area, and I’m sure there are many others. So I guess the question is whether there is anything at a much higher, cross-sphere coordination level that would be useful…. I think pushing back if no goal has been articulated makes a lot of sense, because while it’s obviously a critical tool, there has also been a lot of make-work around this topic, with no real focus IMHO.
Something like the WP-MIP but for Climate-focussed ML models would be quite useful I think (so essentially a CMIP extension). I think it could be good to ask a broader WMO audience if that hasn’t already been done as well - will this be run past the Research Board for example?
Evidently it was the WMO that asked WCRP to do something, I’m not sure but think what they want is an expert body to ask questions about AI+weather/climate and where it is going. As for MIP there are efforts underway, does anyone know how they are going? Its possible that WCRP could help them.