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The help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been deployed by tech firms and NGOs worldwide to fight the climate change crisis. Gadgets 360 caught up with some, including the team at Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) — a New Delhi-based NGO — and IBM India, to talk about their efforts to apply tech to mitigate the climate crisis.

Although big tech companies are now moving towards measures to become more sustainable (Apple and Facebook have pledged to be carbon neutral by the end of the decade), a lot remains to be done, and this is one of the areas where artificial intelligence is making an impact.

With the UN Climate Change Conference that began in Glasgow on October 31, the discourse on the global climate change crisis is back in the spotlight. The 26th edition of the Conferences of the Parties (COP26) will go on till November 14 and will see global leaders, academic experts, and activists gathering to discuss how to contain the rise in global temperatures.

But while world leaders develop policies and long-term plans, we spoke to companies innovating on the ground to see how they can help contribute to change.

Evading disasters through Sunny Lives

SEEDS developed Sunny Lives, an AI-powered disaster impact model that uses high-resolution satellite imagery to assess the risks of hazard at a hyper-local level. The Sunny Lives project has been executed in partnership with Microsoft and technology partner Gramener, and is being supported under Microsoft’s global programme ‘Artificial Intelligence for Humanitarian Action’.

Mridula Garg, who is leading the Sunny Lives project at SEEDS said that Sunny Lives detects building footprints and then assigns them relative risk scores as values from 1 to 5. “The model takes into account the type of hazard say floods or heat waves, analyses the exposure based on geographic parameters such as slope and vegetation, and uses building classification as a proxy for the socio-economic vulnerability of the inhabitants. The relative risk score assigned after detecting the building footprints is used by our disaster response teams for prioritising families at highest risk,” Garg said.

During the application for an impending cyclone, satellite imagery is procured for Areas of Interest that are selected based on the cyclone’s predicted path issued by the IMD. The Sunny Lives AI Model is then run for these areas to generate the risk scores.

It was clear to the team at SEEDS that the type of building played a significant role in predicting the effect of a disaster on it. For example, a concrete house and a thatched roof dwelling would face a difference in impact from a cyclone even when they are located next to each other. The model was developed from the desire to code this knowledge so that disaster risk assessment could be scaled widely.

Microsoft’s data science team and tech partner Gramener used machine learning to automate the process of identifying dwellings and their types. Satellite images of low-income, highly dense and vulnerable settlements in India were used to identify 7 different categories of dwellings including tarpaulin roofs, metal sheet roofs, double side sloping tiled roofs etc.

The AI model was trained on 15,000 buildings from low-income, highly dense, and vulnerable settlements of Puri and Mumbai. The 15,000 buildings were tagged to build the training dataset for the AI inundation model. A similar exercise is now being done for the cities of Dehradun and Gangtok as the model is being adapted for assessing earthquake risks.

Sunny Lives was deployed at a scale for the first time during cyclone Yaas in May 2021. The model was run for Puri in Odisha, based on which SEEDS reached out to over 1,000 families that were identified as high-risk. Advisories were shared which outlined the steps to be taken in case of evacuation and also suggested low-cost measures to reduce

Garg said that post-disaster impact surveys highlighted that 97 percent of the families found the information useful and were able to reduce losses and take preemptive measures during the cyclone. “In addition, we have recently concluded around 1,500 ground truthing surveys in Puri which will help analyse and further improve the accuracy of the model,” said Garg.

An AI model like Sunny Lives provides an unending possibility to scale across urban geographies and is being adapted for multiple hazards. Deploying the model at scale through collaborations is the next key focus for SEEDS. “We have gathered a lot of interest from several state government authorities and are reaching out to many more. Our vision is to integrate the use of the model for climate change adaptation and disaster management in a way that the hyper-local risk of the communities is understood and pathways for their protection and resilience are put into practice,” Garg said.

Tech firms’ solution to counting CO2

Major companies around the globe have pledged to stop climate change. These companies are facing a challenge with quantifying their emissions and understanding the best way to mitigate the climate change crisis. In response to this, several tech firms have come up with solutions to help businesses prepare for and respond to climate risks.

Salesforce’s team built the Salesforce Sustainability Cloud with a mission to track emissions. The Sustainability Cloud is priced at $4,000 (roughly Rs. 3 lakh) a month. Microsoft is also previewing a tool for calculating emissions called Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. They are aiming to make it available by mid-2022.

IBM also recently brought out a suite of environmental intelligence software that uses AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to climate risks. The team from IBM said that the suite will help businesses which have deployed it to more easily assess their impact on the planet, and reduce the complexity of regulatory compliance and reporting.

“We wanted to make it easier for companies to both manage and to know about the risk affecting their business operations and to act differently in order to minimise the risks,” said Gargi Dasgupta, Director, IBM Research, India.

The suite puts existing weather data from various sources to use to collect and compile data. IBM said in its blog post that the suite is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution designed to help organisations monitor for disruptive environmental conditions, predict the potential impacts of climate change, prioritise mitigation and response efforts, and measure and report on environmental initiatives. The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite utilises the AI-driven innovations from IBM Research.

Shantanu Godbole, the technical lead of IBM’s global research team, said that while assessing how technology would impact climate change, they focused on two areas — mitigation and adaptation. “Mitigation works towards helping organisations meet their net zero carbon emission goals, optimisation of their emissions, and making their business processes more sustainable,” he said.

Godbole added that the focus of their team in terms of adaptation was to help businesses adapt to extreme weather conditions. “Weather forecasting is done for upto one to two weeks into the future. No data is available on the scale of six months or three years down the line. That is a horizon that is an important opportunity area from a planning and decision making perspective. We feel enterprises need to have technology to help make decisions at those times,” Godbole said.


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Scientists Reportedly Found a Potential Sign of Life on a Distant Planet: What You Need to Know

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Scientists Reportedly Found a Potential Sign of Life on a Distant Planet: What You Need to Know

A team of astronomers have reportedly discovered biological activity outside the solar system. The scientists have revealed that the distant planet, named K2-18 b, comprises more than one molecule in its atmosphere that potentially has been generated by living things. However, this revelation has made a sensation among astronomers across the world, more specifically for those who study biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres.

 

According to report by Nature.com, K2-18 b is a planet that is smaller than Neptune. It lies at a distance of 38 parsecs above the Earth.

About the Discovery

Dimethyl sulphide (DMS) has been discovered by scientists from the University of Cambridge, UK, in the atmosphere of K2-18b. The DMS molecule is generated by living organisms, which has raised speculations about the potential for life on this distant planet. The scientists used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to implement research. Also, the discovery happened when a molecule was detected in the starlight filtering through the planet’s atmosphere. These chemicals have raised curiosity amongst astronomers as they are generated by living organisms on the planet Earth.

This discovery first came into the light in the year 2023. However, the new revelations have been made as a result of the follow-up on similar findings. This time, the scientists used different wavelengths and a research strategy to support their discovery of molecules on the distant planet. .

Significance of this Discovery

For decades, scientists have been engrossed in studying life beyond Earth. Now that the pieces of evidence are hinting towards the potential existence of DMS or DMDS on K2-18 b. If proven, this will be a historic win for the scientists. Furthermore, this discovery is a step towards understanding planets from a broader perspective. Overall, more than 5,800 planets have been detected throughout the Universe.

Reason Behind Uncertainty by Other Researchers

The scientists are sceptical about this discovery as they doubt whether DMS or DMDS are really present or is K2-18 b is barren. While some of the researchers are not confident about the discovery, the expert team of scientists from the University of Cambridge, UK, is working extensively to provide a proven base to support their findings.

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Space Veteran Astronaut Returns to Earth to Celebrate his Birthday on April 20

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Space Veteran Astronaut Returns to Earth to Celebrate his Birthday on April 20

The oldest veteran astronaut from NASA landed from the International Space Station on his 70th birthday. Donald Pettit, the U.S astronaut, reached Earth after seven months with his crew members Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, two Russian cosmonauts. The spacecraft Soyuz MS-26 launched on September 11, 2024 and came back to Earth on Saturday, April 20, 2025, at 6:20 AM local time in the steppes of Kazakhstan. He has made a remarkable history by landing on his birthday. He is a renowned name in the space world and has completed 13 spacewalk hours.

Legacy of Pettit

According to reported by space.com , This was the fourth flight of Pettit and Ovchinin, but the second for Vagner. Pettit worked for 590 days, Ovchinin for 595 days, and Vagner for 416 days in space until now, counted after this landing. This trio orbited Earth 3,520 times and finished this 93.3 million-mile journey throughout their mission. NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 flight engineer Nichole Ayers wrote on X on Saturday, saying goodbye today to Donald Pettit. It’s a bittersweet moment as Pettit had an amazing mission by inspiring many individuals while being here.

Back to Earth

The trio began their arrival at 5:57 PM EDT on Saturday, as the Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the station. The vehicle had deorbited burn for around two and a half hours, shedding its orbit, leaving the gumdrop-shaped capsule to bring all of them home. Anne McCain, Ayers, and Jonny Kim, together with JAXA astronaut and Commander of expedition 73, Takuya Onishi, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, are the ones who are still in space.

Soyuz Spacecraft MS-26

It marked a significant spaceflight to the ISS (International Space Station), from its launch to landing, as it transported three well-experienced crew members, including Donald Pettit, Ivan Vagner, and Aleksey Ovchinin, to space for long-term microgravity research in the field of biology, physics, and material science. The spacecraft also docked as an emergency space vehicle for up to 220 days.

Pettit’s Achievements

Many people who follow the science of opportunity demonstrations and photographs of Earth by him know that he is a man of great contributions. Pettit has also helped to oversee the departure of Spacex’s Crew-9 mission on Dragon Freedom, along with Crew-10 on Dragon Endurance and the Cygnus departure of a cargo ship. He has also been a flight engineer for Expedition 30/31 in 2012. Pettit has made major contributions by discovering g-cups to drink coffee in space and polarised photography from space.

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

Astronomers have revealed that the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a massive network of galaxies, might be bigger than they realised. By mapping the cosmos with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)—the brightest explosions in the universe—astronomers found that this structure is even bigger than previously estimated. Surprisingly, portions of it also lie significantly closer to Earth than previously believed, challenging fundamental assumptions about how the universe is structured and evolves.
This cosmic structure was first observed in 2014 — a dense galaxy forming a filament of a supercluster.

A new study now extends the researchers’ previous work, but with a wider GRB sample. Hakkila and Zsolt Bagoly, authors of the study, have refined the measurements. They detected a number of relatively nearby GRBs in their sample. The evidence also shows the Great Wall is larger and wider than previously predicted.

Gamma-Ray Bursts Expose Structure Too Large for Current Models

According to a Space.com report, the GRBs figure prominently in the early discovery and more recent growth of the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. These explosive outbursts — from either collapsing massive stars or colliding neutron stars — produce powerful jets that can be spotted over cosmological distances. Hakkila told the publication that GRBs act as another bright beacon for identifying galaxies, even those too faint to see directly. Because of their brightness, scientists can follow matter throughout the universe more distinctly than ever.

The Great Wall, over 10 billion light-years long, challenges the cosmological principle of uniform universe appearance. Its massive size indicates gaps in current theories and implies that the universe’s formation time was insufficient for such massive structures.

THESEUS May Reveal Full Scale of Cosmic Great Wall

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Burst observations reveal 542 GRB events, but more data is needed to fully understand the Great Wall’s scope due to misidentified origins and sparse sampling. Hakkila points toward the upcoming ESA mission THESEUS — the Transient High Energy Sources and Early Universe Surveyor — as the next major leap.

The mission aims to dramatically expand the catalogue of known GRBs, particularly at extreme distances. “It could finally provide the observational leverage needed to map the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall to its full extent,” Hakkila told Space.com, emphasising its role in refining our understanding of the universe’s large-scale structure.

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