Brendan Ray Builds Tool for Quantum Physics Research - Carnegie Mellon University

I'm not going to lie; I use AI for many of my outdoor adventures. I've found it to be a great tool for planning my marathon training schedule and finding easy hikes for my toddlers. However, one thing I would never rely on it for is planning an actual mountain route, and here's why. Recently, a 16-year-old in British Columbia had to be helicopter-rescued from a vertical cliff face on Crown Mountain in North Vancouver. He used AI to help plan his route, which led him directly into a high-risk climbing section known as the “Widowmaker. "One common misconception about AI is that it understands terrain. It can't differentiate between a scenic walking path, an unmaintained gully, or a Class 4 rock scramble. Even worse, if you lose cell service, your chatbox becomes completely useless. AI can also make mistakes. For example, it went from labeling Panorama Ridge as a strenuous hike to calling it easy terrain when questioned (demonstrated in the video above). If you're heading outdoors, it's best to skip the chatbox and use dedicated mapping tools instead. Apps like Gaia and Trailforks provide real topographic maps and elevation profiles.

I'm not going to lie; I use AI for many of my outdoor adventures. I've found it to be a great tool for planning my marathon training schedule and finding easy hikes for my toddlers. However, one thing I would never rely on it for is planning an actual mountain route, and here's why. Recently, a 16-year-old in British Columbia had to be helicopter-rescued from a vertical cliff face on Crown Mountain in North Vancouver. He used AI to help plan his route, which led him directly into a high-risk climbing section known as the "Widowmaker. "One common misconception about AI is that it understands terrain. It can't differentiate between a scenic walking path, an unmaintained gully, or a Class 4 rock scramble. Even worse, if you lose cell service, your chatbox becomes completely useless. AI can also make mistakes. For example, it went from labeling Panorama Ridge as a strenuous hike to calling it easy terrain when questioned (demonstrated in the video above). If you're heading outdoors, it's best to skip the chatbox and use dedicated mapping tools instead. Apps like Gaia and Trailforks provide real topographic maps and elevation profiles.

Mud from a fjord shows an Atlantic air pattern brought wetter, colder spells to southern Greenland, a clue to how its ice may fare. Greenland’s ice is shrinking as the planet warms. But in the island’s southwest, rainfall and snowfall have been influenced by the same North Atlantic air-pressure pattern for at least 5,000 years. When that pattern tipped one way, the region turned wetter and colder. The record comes from mud on the floor of a Greenland fjord, and it suggests snowfall, not only temperature, shaped how the area’s ice grew and shrank. It doesn’t yet show how glaciers there will respond to the warming ahead. Johan Faust, a researcher at MARUM, the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany, led the work with colleagues in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada. A seesaw in the airThe pattern is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. It’s the difference in air pressure between a low that sits near Iceland and a high near the Azores, and it’s strongest in winter. When that difference is large, the pattern is in its positive phase. Northwestern Europe and southwestern Greenland both get more rain and snow.