94 percent of Indian business policy-makers are worried about negative influence of climate alteration on their business, says The Weather Company, an IBM business

New Delhi, India
IBM and its ancillary unit The Weather Company  revealed an exclusive Climate Change Perceptions in India study that shows how climate change is linked to extreme weather conditions.

The study as well reviews Indians’ opinion of the economic and business influence of extreme weather conditions together with confidence in local weather predictions. The study, fielded by IBM in collaboration with Morning Consult, revealed that 72% Indians are of the view that the local economy has been disturbed by an extreme weather condition in the previous year. Apart from this, 89% of Indians articulated worries that climate change could have a negative influence on the economy. Further stressing on climate change fear, seven in 10 Indians (66%) are of the view that extreme weather conditions are much more general now than they used to be. As per the study findings, those in India are almost twice as likely than those in the U.S. to comment that they are not confident in their local weather predictions. Emerging expertise like IBM GRAF, the new Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting system, assists in narrowing the gap. The supercomputer-propelled system gives fresher, higher-quality forecasts for countries like India that have never before had right of admission to advanced weather facts. The worldwide rollout of IBM GRAF assists the region prepare for and react to climate change. “As weather conditions become increasingly more severe across the globe, it’s crucial that businesses across India have access to timely and accurate weather data to help stay prepared,” remarked Cameron Clayton, General Manager, IBM Watson Media and Weather, adding, “The launch of IBM GRAF is an inflection point in forecasting science, where technology democratizes weather data for the good of society. Enhanced global forecasts are revolutionary in areas of the world like India, where we are committed to delivering improved weather insights to businesses and consumers to help save time, money and lives.” IBM GRAF ​ IBM GRAF functions on an IBM Power Systems supercomputer and can forecast conditions up to 12 hours before with detail and frequency earlier not obtainable at this worldwide scale. IBM GRAF will furnish numerous finer-grained forecasts of the atmosphere and update its predictions six to 12 times more regularly than traditional worldwide modelling systems. In India, present worldwide weather models cover 9-13 kilometres (5.6-8.1 miles) and are updated every 6 hours. In comparison, IBM GRAF predicts down to 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) and is updated hourly. With 12 trillion pieces of forecast information topic daily by IBM GRAF, IBM targets to enhance forecast quality in India. Balancing weather models such as IBM GRAF along with developing expertise such as AI, cloud and analytics produces better decision support competences for the common public, apart from energy organisations and client brands.  IBM GRAF results are incorporated in The Weather Company's large-scale forecasting engine, including The Weather Channel app and weather.com functioning on the IBM Cloud. These results balance AI to extract the most excellent predictions for clients and businesses, bringing advanced weather forecasts to mobile phones globally. The unveiling of IBM GRAF in India was greeted by top organizations all over the nation. M.B. Ganapathy, Head of Plantations, Tata Coffee observed, “Tata Coffee is one of the largest integrated coffee cultivation and processing companies in the world. We are leveraging the IBM Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture to receive accurate weather forecast, soil moisture and soil temperature information at our coffee estates to amplify the agricultural process of coffee crop cultivation in India. Having access to a scientifically proven and reliable weather forecasting system will allow us to take proactive measures, not only to safeguard crops and manage precision irrigation but also ensure the safety of our workforce.” Prateep Basu, Founder and CEO of SatSure, commented, "At SatSure, we combine satellite imagery, proprietary algorithms, weather data, drone imagery, social and economic datasets and cadastral maps with additional problem-centric datasets to generate near real-time location-specific decision intelligence. With IBM GRAF, the granularity of insights offered will be an important factor whether it’s helping maximize crop production on agricultural lands or using satellite imagery to guide rescue efforts during a natural disaster." Study Methodology This survey was undertaken by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM from October 29 -November 04, 2019, among a nationwide sample of 4816 adults in India and the U.S., consisting of 2,000 common populace of adults in India, 2,000 U.S. adults in the common populace, consisting of 400 Indian small business owners and 195 U.S. small business owners. The interviews were taken online and the common populace datasets were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational Educational accomplishments, and region. Outcomes among the commonwealth populace in every nation have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. By ANJISHNU BISWAS