Case: COWI

In a project to overcome global warming, the large consultancy company COWI needed help to handle all the numbers from the many calculations and measurements of climate change made in Denmark, over the last 30 years.

In order to solve the task, COWI would break down large datasets using Excel combined with encoding in C-Sharp (C#) to recognize patterns and find places of interest in the data.

Three of Specialisterne’s consultants were given the task and received a large amount of data from COWI with an instruction to decode the system and look for deviations in data. For example, changes in data within specific areas and between two consecutive years were looked at. Changes and special fluctuations were found by pattern recognition of data that the consultants themselves found strange or interesting. The interaction between Excel and C Sharp (C#) was crucial to the work; the consultants combined advanced use of Excel with coding a program in C Sharp, which carried out the extraction and systemization of data from the datasets. The consultants solved the task from Specialisterne’s headquarter in Copenhagen.

“My own professional approach to global warming is more scientific and project oriented than it is number-focused. It is hard for me to systematically find places of interest in the large datasets, which over the years are created with the many measurements of climate change.” “With the help from Specialisterne, we have achieved what we wanted: to spot patterns in data in an effective way. When it comes to climate data, there is a special demand for that exact ability.”

 

– Peter Sølling Jørgensen, Specialist in climate changes, COWI.