This new report by UN scientists encourages the global climate action community and the UN member states to consider Artificial intelligence (AI) as a promising solution to this problem. AI is flexible, computationally efficient, and can be run in web- and cloud-based services. As AI continues to grow in popularity for a variety of applications, it is likely that more people will soon be able to operate and interpret AI output than the traditional climate change impact assessment models. Yet, AI has not been fully utilized within the climate change impact assessment space. This motivated the researchers of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) to investigate the capabilities of AI by conducting a rapid, flexible, and reliable climate change impact assessment for 46 cities across the United States. Their results demonstrate the power of this technique to serve as a replacement for conventional climate change impact assessment methods at the local level that are computationally intensive and time-consuming.
Executive summary -- Introduction -- Why AI for Impact Assessment --- Exploring the Water-Energy Nexus in the United States -- Model Development and Evaluation in the Observational Space -- Integrating Earth System Model Data into the AI Algorithm -- Integrating Climate Analogs into the AI Algorithm -- Discussion & Policy Recommendations -- References -- Appendix I: Methods and Input Data

35 p.

9789280861204