IBM and researchers collaborate to accelerate
analysis and prediction of climate changes from months to
minutes
TORONTO and EDMONTON, Nov. 20,
2014 /CNW/ - IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the University of Alberta announced today they are
using advanced streaming analytics software to provide
researchers with information to enable them to detect, visualize
and predict subtle changes in the health of the environment in
real-time.
A group of Canadian and international researchers and graduate
students supporting the University's Enviro-Net project to monitor
climate change are now using IBM's InfoSphere Streams software to
quickly ingest, correlate and analyze data as it arrives from
more than 500 sensors implanted in some of the world's most remote
– and vulnerable – ecosystems.
The University of Alberta
collaborated with researchers from IBM's T.J. Watson Laboratory to
integrate the software into their research to reduce from months to
minutes the time required to analyze data. The technology
provides researchers -- and eventually policy makers – with an
unprecedented ability to predict environmental events, such as
forest fires and drought, and to apply insights to more accurately
forecast how boreal and tropical forests are returning after
deforestation and disturbances.
The software provides real-time analysis for more than 10,000
data points per second from sensors measuring carbon levels and
other environmental indicators such as relative humidity,
temperature, soil moisture, atmospheric pressure and ambient noise
from forests in Canada,
Australia, Brazil, Costa
Rica and Mexico.
Dr. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, from
the University's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is
the project leader. He will be demonstrating the speed of the
analytics platform at the United Nations Framework Convention for
Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Lima, Peru in late November, 2014.
The depth of insights now being produced has not previously been
available in real time. "When I started this project four years ago
I had no idea how much data I would be generating, and we could not
look at our data in a reasonable amount of time. It was taking
something like six months to two years before we had usable
insights," says Dr Sanchez-Azofeifa. "Now, we can basically 'see'
the forests breathing in real time."
Dr. Sanchez-Azofeifa, along with students at the University of Alberta, will work with IBM to
develop a simplified 'dashboard' view of the data to make it easier
to share and convey insights to decision-makers.
"Right now, there is an enormous amount of critical data
produced by environmental monitors," said Bernie Kollman, IBM's vice-president, Public
Sector Alberta. "The ability to quickly analyze that data and make
informed decisions will have implications for us here in
Alberta as researchers study the
impact of oil sands extraction efforts. It will also help other
policy makers around the world support environmental
stewardship."
IBM awarded Dr. Sanchez-Azofeifa usage of the software through
IBM's Alberta Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS). IBM Alberta CAS
was formed with the Government of Alberta and Alberta Universities to enable
strategic, multidisciplinary collaborations of mutual interest and
benefit between the province's research community and IBM's
worldwide research and development staff, with an emphasis on
projects analyzing "big data" or the quintillion bytes of data
generated daily by a variety of sources.
IBM has made it a mandate to work with academia and government
to advance Canada's ability to
innovate, address a critical, big data skills gap and drive
analytics research.
A Smarter Planet Blog: University of
Alberta Dean of Science Jonathan Schaeffer talks big data
and remote sensoring
Video: University of
Alberta using IBM's streaming analytics to
visualize & predict changes in health of environment in
real-time.
About IBM
For more information about IBM Big Data and
Analytics, visit http://ibm.com/bigdataanalytics and
http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/.
Follow IBM Big Data & Analytics on Twitter @IBMbigdata and
@IBMAnalytics.
About University of Alberta,
Faculty of Science:
The Faculty of Science at the University of
Alberta is driving scientific excellence and the development
and application of new technologies. This rich environment
puts students on the front lines to help answer the big questions -
including those that ask for solutions to understand and manage
changes in the environment.
SOURCE IBM Canada Ltd.