Earth Day 2024

Earth Day is a global annual event celebrated each 22nd April, dedicated to bringing attention to environmental issues and inspiring everyone to take action to protect our planet. It promotes change, reminding us of the importance of sustainability and conservation. The first Earth Day took place in 1970 and is often seen as the birth of the modern environmental movement. Now, over 1 billion people in 193 countries participate in Earth Day activities.

Events are diverse, ranging from community cleanups and educational seminars to rallies demanding stronger environmental policies. Ultimately, Earth Day aims to raise awareness of crucial challenges like pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss. It provides resources and education, empowering people to make informed choices and drive positive change that benefits the planet.

Choosing planet over plastic

The focus of Earth Day 2024 is "Planet vs. Plastic", and aims to highlight the urgent problem of plastic pollution and its damaging impact on our environment. The theme emphasizes the need for significant action to address the overwhelming amount of plastic waste that harms ecosystems and endangers the health of both wildlife and humans. It encourages a shift away from our reliance on single-use plastics and promotes a transition towards more sustainable alternatives.

Weather and climate are inextricably linked to the plastic crisis.  Ocean currents carry plastic waste far and wide, and extreme weather events exacerbate the problem. Microplastics are infiltrating our water sources, even affecting rain cycles. Understanding weather patterns is key to grasping the full scope of plastic pollution and finding solutions.

How OpenWeather can help

Running in parallel with Earth Day 2024, the OpenWeather challenge focuses on sustainability and social well-being. This exciting competition gives participants access to OpenWeather’s rich variety of weather data resources, and encourages those that take part to produce creative ways to use this data to make a positive impact.

This challenge builds on the OpenWeather student initiative, which gives those in education and research free and open access to detailed and nuanced weather data, powered by the OpenWeather model. 

This is part of the OpenWeather commitment to making weather data accessible to all, and encouraging individuals and groups to explore the wide range of uses that it can be put to.

About OpenWeather:

OpenWeather provides weather data for any location on the globe using a proprietary hyperlocal forecasting model with a resolution from 500 m to 2 km, globally. More than 6,000,000 customers from logistics, agriculture, insurance, energy, retail, and many other sectors, are working with the company's weather products. 

OpenWeather cooperates with global meteorological agencies such as MetOffice and NOAA, and enhances its model with data from radars, weather stations and satellites. The company provides great availability of service at 99.9% for enterprise-level products. 

The products can be easily integrated into complex IT systems and are ideal for ML analytic systems. OpenWeather is a member of Royal Meteorological Society and an Achilles-certified supplier. OpenWeather ethical initiatives include support of educators and students, not-for-profit subscriptions for the general public to increase weather awareness, and a recent Ukrainian donation programme.

For more information on how to gain access to our OpenWeather products, please email us.