AIR launches global weather and climate prediction center

"The decision to invest in this cutting edge technology was an obvious one for us," said AIR President and CEO, Karen Clark. "Not only is AIR well-positioned to satisfy the overwhelming demand for more sophisticated and reliable information for the expanding Weather Derivatives market," said Ms. Clark, "but there is obvious synergy between this technology and our existing catastrophe modeling products and services. This investment by AIR will lead to better forecast data from which companies can make more informed strategic decisions."

AIR's new capability revolves around the implementation of leading edge global climate modeling technology. Global Climate Models (GCMs), which have been developed through the combined efforts of several universities, and both private and governmental research institutions worldwide, are used to monitor and predict changes in the global climate. In recent years, the sophistication and reliability of GCMs have increased enormously. Use of these models, however, is not widespread because of the extensive computational resources required to run them. The enormous complexity of these models required, until very recently, the use of the world's fastest supercomputers.

According to AIR Meteorologist Mark Gibbas, "GCMs use global environmental information including temperature, humidity, wind speeds, sea surface temperatures, sea ice cover, and soil moisture, in conjunction with governing equations based on known physical laws, to model global circulation patterns in three- dimensional space through time." Added Mr. Gibbas, "AIR has developed the capability to run these sophisticated climate models by linking 40 high-performance processors in parallel."

"While this technology significantly expands AIR's potential marketplace," said Wendy Lavin Schilling, AIR Assistant Vice President, "our initial focus will be to provide this technology to our traditional financial services clients." AIR will offer web- based services providing real-time access to current weather information, data and forecasts.

Applied Insurance Research is the leading independent provider of catastrophe modeling services and computer software solutions (CATMAP(R)/2, CLASIC/2 T, CLASICT , and CATRADER(R)) to the insurance, reinsurance and capital markets. AIR's models simulate losses from natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, hail, tornadoes, other windstorms, flood and earthquakes in over 20 countries. Offices are located in Boston, London, Seattle and Miami.

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