IBM Tries To Forecast and Control Beijing's Air Pollution

itwbennett writes Using supercomputers to predict and study pollution patterns is nothing new. And already, China's government agencies, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, publicly report real-time pollution levels to residents. But IBM is hoping to design a better system tailored for Beijing that can predict air quality levels three days in advance, and even pinpoint the exact sources of the pollution down to the street level, said Jin Dong, an IBM Research director involved in the project.

Re:no supercomputer needed

[zlives]

yes but if we spend the next 5-20 years modeling we don't actually have to do anything real about it.

Got To Be A Ritual

[Jim Sadler]

Anything that society can't deal with becomes surrounded by rituals. For example we can make one heck of a ritual over applying the death penalty. It is like prisons that seal off all roads within miles of the prison near the hour of execution supposedly to ward off the stampede of would be friends that supposedly will try to rescue the subject. Now pollution is getting the same nonsense. Most pollution is obvious. If it pollutes just shut it down. No need to decide which source is least or greatest at all. If it pollutes simply end it. One business may be spewing carbon monoxide or even carbon dioxide while the next spews sulpher. We need no study or debate over which is worse. If it pollutes kill it. If that happens to shut down almost every business in town then great. You have just solved the traffic problem. There is more than one way to clean up the neighborhood.