Lai quizzes meteorologists and inspects supercomputer at CWA

Lai quizzes meteorologists and inspects supercomputer at CWA

2024-07-16

President Lai Ching-te visited the Central Weather Administration’s office on Tuesday. Lai chatted with forecasters and asked about the latest weather outlook. He also toured the computer room, which houses the 86th most powerful supercomputer in the world. Lai pledged to support all hardware and software needs of the weather agency, to preserve the lives and property of Taiwan’s people.

President Lai Ching-te visited the Central Weather Administration’s office for the first time since assuming office. With typhoon season underway, he couldn’t resist some questions about the weather.

Lai Ching-te
President
What’s the weather going to be like on the day of the GACC concert?

Wu Wan-hua
Central Weather Administration forecaster
For now, it seems that it will be quite nice. There will be afternoon thunderstorms, but they probably won’t affect the concert venue. So the weather will be relatively stable.

Lai Ching-te
President
Nowadays forecasts are precise enough that we can know that it won’t rain in a specific spot. Is it true that a tropical storm is on the way?

Wu Wan-hua
Central Weather Administration
Over the next half month, a tropical system will indeed be developing in the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. As to how this system will affect our weather, that will depend on atmospheric changes, which we will continue to monitor.

Lai also paid a visit to the heart of the Central Weather Administration – the computer room, which houses one of the world’s 100 most powerful computers.

Staff
Central Weather Administration
It currently ranks No. 86 in the world. Its power is equivalent to 46,000 personal computers, high-end personal computers.

The CWA is also collaborating with Nvidia, using artificial intelligence to enhance the accuracy of forecasts. In a video, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally explained the technology.

Jensen Huang
Nvidia CEO
CorrDiff AI does this 1,000 times faster. Here in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration is using these models to forecast typhoon landfalls with more precision.

Lai Ching-te
President
The more accurate the work at the CWA, the closer to perfection our decisions will be in the government. For the sake of protecting our people’s lives and property, the government will fully support all equipment upgrades at the CWA.

Lai stressed that technology was key, especially when facing the challenges posed by climate change.

For more Taiwan news, tune in:
Sun to Fri at 9:30 pm on Channel 152
Tue to Sat at 1 am on Channel 53

上任首視察氣象署總統賴清德當場出考題

2024-07-16

總統賴清德關切氣候變遷議題，今天特別親自視察氣象署，關切硬體軟體的技術，總統認為，如果預報精準，政府決定會接近完美，人民生命財產傷害就能降到最低。對於氣象署未來硬體軟體人力的需求，總統表示會鼎力支持，不過他也當場隨堂考，問颱風會不會影響台灣？

總統賴清德上任後首度視察氣象署，適逢颱風季，總統當場出考題。

[[總統賴清德]]
“我們文總辦的音樂會，當天的氣候怎麼樣”

[[氣象署簡任技正伍婉華]]
“目前看起來還不錯，那天的午後雷陣雨，也可能不太會下到我們文總舉辦音樂會的地方，所以相對而言天氣穩定”

[[總統賴清德]]
“現在已經精準到，即使下雨也不會下到這個區域。颱風是不是真的要來了?”

[[氣象署簡任技正伍婉華]]
“其實從現在開始到未來半個月左右，在南海海面或菲律賓海面，真的會有熱帶系統，影響我們各地方的天氣程度如何，其實都還要繼續看整個大氣的變化，我們持續關注”

總統還特別進到氣象署的心臟地帶電腦機房，視察名列全球百大地表最強的超級電腦。

[[氣象署人員]]
“它在目前世界排名是第86名，它相當於我們46000台個人電腦，也是算比較頂級的個人電腦在使用”

氣象署不只有超級電腦，與輝達合作，運用AI技術提升預報精細度，輝達副總裁播放影片，AI黃仁勳負責介紹。

[[輝達影片]]
“CorrDiff AI 比傳統的物理模擬方法快一千倍。在台灣的中央氣象局是用這些模型，更精確來預測颱風登陸點”

[[總統賴清德]]
“如果氣象署的工作非常精準，政府在做決定的時候，也會更接近完美。基於保護國人生命財產的安全，政府有責任鼎力支持我們氣象署，在各項設備的精進”

總統親自上陣，宣示將運用科技，積極應對氣候變遷的國際共同難題。

更多新聞內容，請鎖定：
民視台灣台（152頻道）週日至週五晚上9:30
民視新聞台（53頻道）週二至週六凌晨1:00

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A green bitter melon in a bottle. This Kinmen couple run an organic farm, and have just launched a new bitter melon bottling offer. Under the guidance of the farmers, visitors can experience putting a baby bitter melon in a bottle.

The farm owner demonstrates first. The bitter melon has to grow up inside the bottle from its first days. It looks simple, but it’s hard to do in practice. You have to watch out for the exact position of the melon in the bottle, and the string that it’s tied on also needs to be just the right length, otherwise the melon might not grow well. After the bottling is finished, the mature bitter melon can be seen flourishing about two weeks later.

Member of public
I just realized that it’s actually very detailed work. You need to put it in the kaoliang liquor bottle when it’s still very small. And then you tie it up, so that was quite a surprise.

The farmer says that many Kinmen residents have bitter melon liquor at home. Visitors wonder how such a big melon gets inside the bottle. The farm grows organic produce, and right now is better melon season. So they decided to offer this bottling experience as a form of education as well as a fun leisure activity.

Hung Chen-chu
Organic farmer, Kinmen
We’ve always seen bottles of bitter melon liquor in homes. And it so happens that we’re an organic farm and we’ve grown organic farms for a long time, so we thought, “Can we combine our farming experiences with this?” And it’s a very meaningful way to promote our work locally in Kinmen.

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Indian spices, masalas, snacks, and more Indian products are on display. Rakesh Madanlal Bohra and his brother moved to Taiwan in 1990 to start a computer company. While working at the computer company, he discovered a growing demand from his Indian clients for Indian and vegetarian food.

Rakesh Madanlal Bohra
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We found difficult that clients used to ask for vegetarian food because most of the Indian clientele is vegetarian. To support them we started having one of the rooms actually in our computer business for Indian food products. This is how our journey started for Indian food products. Over the years, we found that more and more Indian people stated coming to our store and asking for more and more products. We started with a journey of probably a few products. Maybe 10 products. Today, we have almost 700 products in our range to support totally all Indians.

To serve the growing population of Indians visiting and residing in Taiwan, Bohra opened an Indian grocery store in 1994. This July, he opened his fourth store. Bohra says that over the years, he has witnessed a boom of Indian restaurants opening up in Taiwan.

Rakesh Madanlal Bohra
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We came here probably in the early 90s, there was only one Indian restaurant in Taiwan. Just because we started bring in the masalas, the spices and the masalas which is basically a combination of vairous spices. We found that many restaurants thought that using the masala they can start their restaurant business. Today, we have more than 100 Indian restaurants in Taiwan. It is just because of the reason that we started bringing masalas. It helped them to start their business. Since there is collaboration between India and Taiwan, they are thinking of bringing in a lot of Indians. Whether it is skilled labor or unskilled labor. We are thinking it is our responsibility to start more and more stores and support them.

Today, the stores are also very popular among Taiwanese customers. Despite the success of this business, Bohra says there have been plenty of challenges.

Rakesh Madanlal Bohra
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Every time Taiwan FDA. Whenever we import food products, many of our food gets rejected. We are discussing with the Indian counterparts telling them that let’s get those products that comply with Taiwan FDA regulations. This is one of the areas where we lose a lot of money actually. This is the biggest challenge but we are trying our best to get the best of the products which are in compliance with the Taiwan FDA as well as can help Indian people over here.

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