Project Ukko: Immersive Installation

Project Ukko presents a novel way to spot patterns in seasonal wind prediction data. Understanding future wind conditions can become a crucial component block in supporting clean energy sources and climate change resilience. Our visualization allows energy traders, wind farm managers and others to spot global patterns and trends in future wind conditions, and drill into detailed prediction breakdowns on a regional level. Based on a high-dimensional dataset of over 100’000 points world-wide, with 51 predictions each, and 20 years of historical data, the Project Ukko web application presents an information-rich, yet highly digestible map display. The map draws attention to the crucial spots in the data: where in the world can we expect strong changes in wind speeds in the coming seasons? A tailored visual device (probability cone) presents a novel visual model to communicate distributions of probabilistic prediction values, and informed the development of a coherent visual language for the whole project. The visualization was developed in an interdisciplinary team of experts in climatology, communication and data visualization design in the context of EUPORIAS, a project funded by the EC to increase the resilience of the European society to climate change.