The initiative is part of a multi-year project to advance the country’s “nowcasting” abilities.
Google is committing $5m to advance Ireland’s climate research and AI-powered weather forecasting abilities.
The funding, which comes from Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, is earmarked for a new four-year research initiative that will combine satellite imagery and real-time local observations from a new network of weather stations based in schools across the country.
The work will utilise Google’s Earth AI, a Gemini-powered Earth model that already helps companies, non-profits and local governments with environmental monitoring and disaster response.
Half of the committed funding is going to Ireland’s first dedicated AI weather research centre AIMSIR, based out of the University College Dublin (UCD) campus.
The $2.5m allotment will be used to create the Climate + School Weather AI Network (SWAN), delivered by the AIMSIR Centre in partnership with Met Éireann and the Climate + Co-Centre, a research network co-run by Research Ireland that works across the UK and Ireland.
The Google-funded project will receive further support from the Irish Schools Sustainability Network, the Irish Science Teachers’ Association and Scoilnet – the official education portal of the Department of Education and Skills.
The research initiative plans to deploy 560 solar-powered weather stations in schools across all 26 counties to create a high-density network of real-time, ground-level weather observations.
Each station will measure temperature, atmospheric pressure, rainfall, humidity, wind speed and wind direction at one-minute intervals, and researchers will combine these observations with more than 70 years of historical Irish weather data and Google’s AI, the official announcement read. The network’s observations will be available freely to access on the internet.
The project aims to improve weather forecasting by building “nowcasting” models which have the capability of detecting severe weather events sooner than traditional systems. The resulting open-source blueprint created by the initiative will be available for other countries to replicate, which would also reduce cost, the company said.
“What’s important about this project is that none of the data will be locked away,” said Prof Andrew Parnell, the director of the AIMSIR Centre and Met Éireann Professor of Data Science for Climate and Weather at UCD.
“Every reading from every school, the designs for the stations themselves and the code we write to make sense of it all will be published openly and free to use.
“A student in Donegal will be able to see the rain falling on their own school a minute after it lands, and a student anywhere in Ireland will be able to use that same data for their own projects too.”
At each participating school, an educator will be offered training and access to a dedicated STEM curriculum aligned with the Junior and Leaving Certificate to ensure students learn to use the data as well, Google said. Schools have been invited to register their interest in the programme.
AIMSIR, short for the UCD Met Éireann Centre for AI, Meteorological Services, Innovation and Research, is one of the first initiatives of its kind that brings together a university and a national meteorological service. It was launched with a funding of €5m from Met Éireann’s Weather and Climate Research Programme.
The centre supports 60 experts from across mathematics and statistics, computer science, civil engineering and physics with a dedicated AI computing cluster for their research.
“This initiative is an example of how AI can be applied to addressing a real world challenge,” said Vanessa Hartley, the VP and head of Google Ireland.
“By bringing together Google’s technology, Ireland’s world-class research expertise and real-time observations we can explore how AI can help us better understand Ireland’s weather and better prepare for severe weather events.
“What makes this initiative particularly impactful is that communities across the country will play an integral role.
“With weather stations located in schools across Ireland, students and teachers will have the opportunity not just to learn about weather and AI, but to contribute directly to a nationwide – and potentially global – scientific initiative.”
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