The Applicability of Big Data in Climate Change Research: The Importance of System of Systems Thinking

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the interrelationship between data science and climate studies, as well as describes how sustainability climate issues can be managed using the Big Data tools. Climate-related Big Data articles are analyzed and categorized, which revealed the increasing number of applications of data-driven solutions in specific areas, however, broad integrative analyses are gaining less of a focus. Our major objective is to highlight the potential in the System of Systems (SoS) theorem, as the synergies between diverse disciplines and research ideas must be explored to gain a comprehensive overview of the issue. Data and systems science enables a large amount of heterogeneous data to be integrated and simulation models developed, while considering socio-environmental interrelations in parallel. The improved knowledge integration offered by the System of Systems thinking or climate computing has been demonstrated by analysing the possible inter-linkages of the latest Big Data application papers. The analysis highlights how data and models focusing on the specific areas of sustainability can be bridged to study the complex problems of climate change.