Floods, droughts, wildfires — extreme weather events affect us all. But what exactly will happen to your city or house? To help us understand, the EU has created a digital twin of the Earth to analyze the effects of climate change.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme weather events affect us all.
00:05But what exactly will happen to my city, my neighborhood, my house?
00:09To help us understand and combat the effects of climate change,
00:12the EU just launched a gigantic project.
00:15A digital twin of planet Earth.
00:18Digital twin? What's that again?
00:21A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or a system.
00:25It mirrors the real-world counterpart.
00:28Digital twins are designed to be realistic,
00:31and AI is used to simulate various scenarios.
00:34Those are meant to help us make better decisions.
00:38The EU's project Destination Earth or DESTINY
00:41could for example answer questions like
00:44Is this the right place to build my house?
00:47What else can we use DESTINY for?
00:50Various simulations will be accessible through the DESTINY platform.
00:54The app could show you things like
00:56what might happen when a flood hits your neighborhood
00:58or how different climate scenarios could affect tourism in your region.
01:02If you're a farmer, you might want to check how the climate will affect your harvest.
01:07Or maybe you simply want to know where to best place solar panels.
01:11The possibilities are endless.
01:14The DESTINY platform offers users and developers tools
01:17to build their own specific scenarios.
01:20Right now, there are only a few services up and running
01:23as the data is still being added.
01:25The goal is to have a full digital replica of Earth
01:28and all its systems by 2030.
01:31So, how is it built?
01:34The core is a massive database called Data Lake.
01:38It compiles environmental data from major providers
01:41like the European Space Agency,
01:43the Earth Observation Institute Copernicus and many more.
01:47Whenever scientists run a simulation on the digital twin,
01:50data produced by the model is also fed back into the database.
01:55By the way, not only the EU is developing a digital twin of planet Earth.
02:00Chipmaker NVIDIA also has one.
02:03According to them, Taiwan's government plans to use their model to predict typhoons.
02:09But there's not only digital twins of our planet.
02:12These data models can be used in all kinds of contexts.
02:16What else could digital twins be used for?
02:19Here's three examples.
02:21Making surgeries safer.
02:24A digital twin of the human body or a specific organ
02:27can help test procedures before an actual surgery.
02:31Simulating surgeries on a digital twin could help estimate risks,
02:35making the process much safer.
02:38Making your city more livable.
02:41With digital twins of cities, urban planners can test
02:44how greening and building structure affects air quality,
02:47temperature or wind, for example.
02:49This kind of information can help decide where to put shops, schools or roads.
02:54Making trains more punctual.
02:57Germany's national railway company Deutsche Bahn
03:00is creating a digital twin of their rail network.
03:04Simulating changes to train routes or schedules
03:07could help estimate the consequences for travellers and minimise disruptions.
03:13In short, digital twins are meant to maximise efficiency and minimise risks.
03:18However, they require loads of computing power,
03:21currently available only to big institutions.
03:24This is the computer that runs NVIDIA's Digital Earth, by the way.
03:29But who knows, in the future we might all carry our own digital twin
03:33in our pockets when we visit the doctor.
03:36Wouldn't that be amazing?
03:38That's all from me today. Have a good one.
03:43Thanks for watching.