Awards & Nominations

SpaceSeal6 has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

ClimatePal - Every life is worth saving

High-Level Project Summary

Climate change continues to intensify heat waves, air pollution & forest fires - both in frequency and potency. ClimatePal is a mobile application dedicated to providing geo-targeted early warnings - through satellite data combined with croud-sourced information. ClimatePal provides warnings, contact details to local emergency services as well as action plans for each weather event.ClimatePal takes a visual approach to provide educational information and warnings to users. Heatwaves are becoming deadlier and more unpredictable. Creating an early warning system with safety recommendations are key features that can directly impact the life of citizens across Earth.

Link to Project "Demo"

Detailed Project Description



What exactly does it do and how it works?


ClimatePal provides an easy-to-use mobile app that communicates severe weather event warnings visually. Warning systems have been designed to be visually understood, jargon-free and most importantly - educate users on the impact of weather events and their severity on human health. The overarching motto of ClimatePal is Warn - Educate - Help, Which we have aimed to acomplish through the following features;




Become a ClimatePal


Users are able to create an account with ClimatePal (optional) in order to receive geo-targeted personalised warnings on the following weather events;

  • Heatwaves
  • Pollutions (such as air pollution)
  • Forest fires



ClimatePal warning system

The homepage of ClimatePal provides a visual warning system classified by three states (Green, yellow, red)

  • Green (Good) - A particular event is not severe and poses no health risk to individuals.
  • Yellow (Moderate) - Weather event poses a moderate risk to individuals with warnings and caution recommended.
  • Red (Severe) - The health risk to individuals is severe and can post a threat to life.


Event Education page

The event education page provides information on the specific weather event. information is jargon-free with the goal of providing easy-to-understand explanations and safety guides.


Expanded weather event page

The expanded weather event page provides additional information and safety procedures to help users navigate to safety.

Each weather event includes the following educational information:

  • Overall summary of the weather event
  • Health implications(personalized based on the severity of the event - in real-time)
  • "What can I do?"action plan (provides step-by-step procedures and safety guides)
  • Helpline- Each event provides direct contact details of local emergency services. This feature aims to reduce the need for individuals to search for contact details outside of app.


Real-time geo-targeted weather event location map

Each weather event is accompanied by a heatmap that highlights the area of impact for the weather event. App users will be geo-targeted or manually providing their location in order to detect dangerous events in close proximity.

Within each heatmap, the following information is used/provided:

  • Weather event impact rating (green, yellow or red)
  • Warning label and description of the event
  • heatmap of the event(s) updated as the user moves across an geographic area





What benefits does it have? 






Early detection and prevention

ClimatePal provides an early warning that is personalised to a users geo-location rather than generic weather events based on the area.



A visual warning classification system

We have colour-coded and optimised educational content that is easy to read and understand.


Crowdsourced data

We rely on locally generated satellite information for weather events, however, a key component to an early warning and detection system includes reports from individuals.



Index classification system for categorizing the severity of each weather event.

For specific weather events including heatwaves, the classification would follow the methodology used by local government areas. For instance, the Australian government warning classification for (green, yellow, red) would be:


(Green) Low-intensity heatwaves are the most common—most people are able to cope with this level of heat.


(Yellow) Severe heatwaves are less frequent and are challenging for vulnerable people such as the elderly—particularly those with pre-existing medical conditions.


(red) Extreme heatwaves are the rarest kind. They affect the reliability of infrastructure, like power and transport, and are dangerous for anyone who does not take precautions to keep cool—even those who are healthy. People who work or exercise outdoors are, particularly at risk. Source: https://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/891/how-will-i-know-if-a-heatwave-is-coming/



What do you hope to achieve?

With ClimatePal we aim to:


Warn - provide a warning system that


Educate - Educate individuals on the dangers of severe weather events posed by weather events that continue to intensify due to climate change.


Help - Most importantly, ClimatePal seeks to help individuals stay safe and save lives through an educational and early warning weather event app.



App login access:

username: chris2021@gmail.com

password: password


Space Agency Data

The inspiration behind the data

The graph we used graph illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures. Nineteen of the hottest years have occurred since 2000, with the exception of 1998. The year 2020 tied with 2016 for the hottest year on record since record-keeping began in 1880 (source: NASA/GISS). This research is broadly consistent with similar constructions prepared by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


The time series below shows the five-year average variation of global surface temperatures. Dark blue indicates areas cooler than average. Dark red indicates areas warmer than average.


The “Global Temperature” figure on the home page dashboard shows global temperature change since 1880. One gets this number by subtracting the first data point in the chart from the latest data point.



Data used in ClimePal

Link for the data: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/



How ClimePal uses data to save lives

The data shows Earth’s surface continues to be significantly warm, with recent global temperatures being the hottest in the past 2,000-plus years, with this data we can keep people alerted of the current heat and how warm it has gotten so far, since all climate issues are interlinked, this adds further to the knowledge people can have

Global Surface Temperature | NASA Global Climate Change

climate.nasa.gov

Hackathon Journey

Our experience with Space Apps Hackathon


Working on the Space apps hackathon has been extremely rewarding and challenging. The key focus of the project was to create a diversely skilled team and form a healthy system for collaboration.

Each team member was able to effectively communicate and provide support and guidance to each other.

A key aspect of the challenge was the immense support provided by passionate/talented NASA community members.


Overall, the hackathon provided a great sense of purpose and goal in helping explore and reduce the continuous impact of climate change.



Inspirations behind ClimePal

We are all super passionate about climate change and every team member has a personal connection to how bad the impacts of such problems can be, having lived in Sydney we have all experienced days when there was a heatwave, and later on, when forest fires started in Australia, leading to bushfires, we could see how polluted the air became in Australia with the Air quality in most areas decreasing significantly and in some areas major consequences occurred too. We all shared the same vision of solving this problem and protecting the country from such possible issues in the future, we realized an app that alerts people before any such climate event happens can possibly save their life, and since nothing like this had existed, we decided to build one.



Special thanks :)

NASA for supporting the hackathon and being the key inspiration behind the build of ClimatePal and supporting innovation in reducing the impacts of climate change.


Special thanks to team members:


  • Ammar Ahmed
  • Christopher Lam
  • Agron Cela
  • Aryanto Li

References

1.Wwf.org.au. 2021. Australian Bushfires - WWF-Australia. [online] Available at: <https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/bushfires#gs.canm8o> [Accessed 3 October 2021].


2.Council, C. and Council, C., 2021. The facts about bushfires and climate change | Climate Council. [online] Climate Council. Available at: <https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/not-normal-climate-change-bushfire-web/> [Accessed 3 October 2021].


3.Cdc.gov. 2021. Safety During a Wildfire|Wildfires. [online] Available at: <https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/wildfires/duringfire.html> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

4.US EPA. 2021. How Smoke from Fires Can Affect Your Health | US EPA. [online] Available at: <https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/how-smoke-fires-can-affect-your-health> [Accessed 3 October 2021].


5.US EPA. 2021. Course Outline and Key Points - Ozone | US EPA. [online] Available at: <https://www.epa.gov/ozone-pollution-and-your-patients-health/course-outline-and-key-points-ozone> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

6.Baaqmd.gov. 2021. Air Quality Forecasts. [online] Available at: <https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/air-quality-forecast> [Accessed 3 October 2021].


7.US EPA. 2021. Sulfur Dioxide Basics | US EPA. [online] Available at: <https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics#what%20is%20so2> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

8.Health.nsw.gov.au. 2021. Beat the heat. [online] Available at: <https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/environment/beattheheat/Pages/default.aspx> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

9.Cawcr.gov.au. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.cawcr.gov.au/technical-reports/CTR_060.pdf> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

10.Media.bom.gov.au. 2021. How will I know if a heatwave is coming? - Social Media Blog - Bureau of Meteorology. [online] Available at: <https://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/891/how-will-i-know-if-a-heatwave-is-coming/> [Accessed 3 October 2021].

Tags

#software, #climatechange, #heatwaves, #bushfires, #forestfires, #airpollution #pollution #waterpollution

Global Judging

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.