UC San Diego Launches New AI Initiative for Earth and Ocean Science

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• Robert Monroe- [email protected]

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On Monday, Duncan Watson-Parris closed his welcoming remarks on the first meeting of the GAIA Initiative with an inviting flyover video of the Scripps campus.

But even some among the artificial intelligence insiders in the audience gasped when Watson-Parris revealed that the looping image they were seeing was generated from a single photo with help from the Google Gemini AI model.

The kickoff event was intended to bring together research groups throughout UC San Diego that are already leveraging AI to accelerate their projects. Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said the goal was to "harness UC San Diego's world-class Earth science and AI expertise to transform how we understand the planet."

"Our vision is to create a campuswide coordinating structure for how we will use AI," he said. "The quicker we can interact with each other, the better we can realize these advances to understand and predict climate impacts."

GAIA's name is a nod to Gaia, the personification of planet Earth in ancient Greek mythology. The initiative is led by Scripps and UC San Diego's Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) and focuses on understanding Earth's natural systems. It counts more than two dozen scientists from throughout UC San Diego, drawing on resources from the San Diego Supercomputer Center and other divisions.

Though AI research is well-established at universities around the world, GAIA leaders say what sets their initiative apart is its ability to leverage two of UC San Diego's most distinctive characteristics: the immense quantity of information Scripps Oceanography has collected over the past 120 years and the campus' inclination toward collaborative research.

Watson-Parris' own work employs AI to take on an almost incomprehensibly large task. He uses machine learning to understand the nuances of clouds on a global scale, but he is doing so while inputting data about phenomena that happen at microscopic scales in the atmosphere.

Elsewhere on campus, marine biologists use AI to understand how harmful algal blooms might spread in the oceans, sickening marine organisms. Climate researchers use it to aid their forecasts of atmospheric river storms that can provide salvation to California's water supply or widespread destruction in the form of floods. AI also helps oceanographers sort through reams of data that identifies marine heat waves that can prove catastrophic to the seafood industry.

All of those climate variables become more decipherable when climate experts work with those who best understand how to use AI as a tool, said GAIA leaders.

"UC San Diego is very strong in both computing and ocean science, and the GAIA vision accelerates collaboration to solve some of our most pressing and high-priority global challenges," said UC San Diego Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Corinne Peek-Asa, a speaker at Monday's event. "As a recipient of a UC San Diego Convene and Influence Award, GAIA will connect areas of expertise across multiple fields, which will provide a creative and energizing forum to advance ideas, methods and impact."

Rose Yu, an associate professor in UC San Diego's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, said the conmingling of resources across campus better places the university to acquire federal support to make UC San Diego a designated center of AI research. The kickoff event served the purpose of having all parties come to agreement on the best way to leverage the university's strengths toward that goal.

"That's why converging these communities is such a priority," she said.

To find a list of UC San Diego experts in climate and earth science, visit UC San Diego's Artificial Intelligence Experts website.

Learn more about research and education at UC San Diego in: Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence