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AIR has leveraged its expertise in sophisticated technologies for
modeling catastrophe risk into weather and climate modeling technologies
and, in November 1999, launched AIRWeather™. The technologies developed by
AIRWeather's meteorologists and climate scientists are used to enhance AIR’s
existing catastrophe risk assessment capabilities and to support the
growing global market for weather risk
management.
AIR’s forecasting capabilities revolve around the implementation of leading edge global weather and climate modeling technologies. General Circulation Models (GCMs), which have been developed through the combined efforts of many universities and both private and governmental research institutions worldwide, use global environmental information including temperature, humidity, wind speeds, sea surface temperatures, sea ice cover, and soil moisture, in conjunction with governing equations based on known physical laws, to model global circulation patterns in three-dimensional space through time. | ||
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Weather and climate are created by this very complex and dynamic
system of land, sea, ice and air reacting to energy from the sun.
Because of its complexity, it has taken decades for scientists to
fully understand this global system, to describe it mathematically
and, finally, to model it. Until very recently, these models also required the use of the world’s fastest supercomputers. AIR has developed a unique capability to run these sophisticated models by linking 100's of high performance parallel processors. The AIRWeather system currently ingests several gigabytes of atmospheric and environmental data each day, as well as hourly weather observations from hundreds of weather stations around the world. Not only is there an obvious synergy between weather and climate modeling technology and catastrophe modeling technology, but AIR’s investment in weather and climate modeling technologies has put us in the lead position for satisfying the growing demand for more sophisticated and reliable information to help weather sensitive companies manage their weather risk.
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