MIT scientists develop technology to forecast warning signs of extreme events

This seems straight from a science fiction saga.

Scientists at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a structure that can spot key patterns that preface any dangerous event.

It is a new design that can predict dangerous, life-threatening events that are likely to occur in near future. This is done by identifying any fluctuation or disturbance occurring in the climate, aviation routine, or circulation of the ocean currents. 

The new design can be used to monitor a wide range of complicated, multidimensional systems to pick up the warning signs that are most likely to occur. 

Themistoklis Sapsis, associate professor at MIT said, “Currently there is no method to explain when these extreme events occur. We have applied this framework to turbulent fluid flows, which are the Holy Grail of extreme events. They’re encountered in climate dynamics in the form of extreme rainfall, in engineering fluid flows such as stresses around an airfoil, and acoustic instabilities inside gas turbines.”

“If we can predict the occurrence of these extreme events, hopefully we can apply some control strategies to avoid them,” added Sapsis. In predicting extreme events in complex systems, scientists have typically attempted to solve sets of dynamical equations – incredibly complex mathematical formulas that, once solved, can predict the state of a complex system over time.

Sapsis said that the framework is generalisable enough to apply to a wide range of systems in which extreme events may occur. 

He plans to apply the technique to scenarios in which fluid flows against a boundary or wall, such as air flows around jet planes, and ocean currents against oil risers.

(With PTI inputs)