Antarctica's Hektoria coverage and the discovery of exo-Venus planets prompts debate about what the forum should be discussing about climate and space

[Hollow85]

This week has produced an unusual concentration of planetary science that reaches beyond the typical tech and quantum focus of this forum. Hektoria Glacier's record collapse published in Nature Geoscience, new research suggesting our galaxy may be filled with exo-Venus planets, the James Webb cosmic web map, the Roman telescope advancing to September, and Psyche completing its Mars flyby all landed within the same five-day window.

The question for the community is whether planetary and climate science fits within the scope of what this forum cares about. The connections to quantum sensing for climate monitoring, AI for glacier tracking from satellite data, and space computing for deep space missions all exist. The exo-Venus discussion is relevant given that Venus is the cautionary tale for planetary climate systems.

Universe Today

[Midnight Wolf]

Yes this should be discussed here. The intersection of AI, quantum sensing, and planetary science is exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary thinking that forums like this are good for

[Sequence19]

Glacier monitoring from satellite data is one of the highest value AI applications in climate science. Automating the analysis of Landsat and Sentinel imagery to detect ice dynamics in real time is a solved problem in principle but underdeployed in practice

[Luke_67]

The exo-Venus finding is worth a standalone thread. The discovery that most Earth-size planets in the habitable zone may be Venus analogues rather than Earth analogues changes the SETI prior significantly

[FrostBear]

Quantum sensing for gravitational field mapping of ice sheets is a real application. Quantum gravimeters can measure ice mass changes with higher precision than GRACE satellites

[HeartbreakKidStinger64]

The Roman telescope advancing to September is the biggest space news of the week and probably underreported given the AI cycle dominating coverage

[Clever Wrench]

Climate science is science. A forum that discusses quantum mechanics and AI but not climate data is making an arbitrary subject boundary that does not serve intellectual curiosity

[Ann]

Climate science is science. A forum that discusses quantum mechanics and AI but not climate data is making an arbitrary subject boundary tha

I don't know about that. Every time without fail.

Thanks for that

[WaveFunction]

The AI angle on all of these is direct. AlphaFold changed biology. AI weather forecasting is changing meteorology. AI glacier dynamics models are changing glaciology. The tool is the connecting thread

[Coder22]

I would personally find regular threads on climate data as relevant as threads on chip architecture. Both are systems that determine what the world looks like in 30 years

[HollowSentinel]

The cautionary tale framing for Venus is worth exploring. If AI is used to model planetary climate systems, Venus is the test case for runaway greenhouse effects that the models need to explain correctly before they can be trusted for Earth projections