The Met Office is set to get a new £1.2bn supercomputer that it says will help the UK to better prepare for extreme weather events like the current flooding caused by Storm Dennis.
Data from this new supercomputer – which is expected to be the world’s most advanced dedicated solely to weather and climate – will be used to help more accurately predict storms, as well as identify the best locations for flood defences and predict changes to the global climate.
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“This investment will ultimately provide earlier more accurate warning of severe weather, the information needed to build a more resilient world in a changing climate and help support the transition to a low carbon economy across the UK,” said Professor Penny Endersby, Met Office chief executive.
“It will help the UK to continue to lead the field in weather and climate science and services, working collaboratively to ensure that the benefits of our work help government, the public and industry make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.”
Supercomputers have dramatically improved weather forecasting in recent times, with storms like this February’s Ciara and Dennis predicted several days in advance, giving councils time to plan defences. Similarly, the Environment Agency has used the Met Office’s latest UK climate projections to set out potential future flooding scenarios.
“The agreement to upgrade the Met Office high performance computer is welcome news,” said Professor Ted Shepherd, chair of the Science Review Group. “The improved processing power will deliver a step-change in weather forecasting and climate modelling capability for the UK, such as the further development of the Earth Systems Model, which involves collaboration with the many UKRI-NERC funded research centres.
“Improved daily to seasonal forecasts and longer-term climate projections will equip society with a greater ability to proactively protect itself against the adverse impacts of climate change.”
The government also announced £30m investment for advanced supercomputing services, providing researchers with access to the latest technology and expert software engineers. It’s claimed the funding should boost research into ‘food fingerprinting’ to detect chemical contaminants in food, as well as improving drug design.
That £1.2Bn would be better spent on sandbags.
Sounds like a complete waste of money to me, like calculating Pi to a few more million decimal places. It would be better used for technology research.
Sandbags are unable to forecast anything other than a slight delay in getting wet.
It’ s worth! Sandbags will predict nothing at all. Middle ages
Getting better (earlier and more accurate) forecasts is a good start – but won’t do much good for the country unless a serious amount of further money is spent to mitigate the climate impacts upon the nation in respect of flooding, wind damage, coastal erosion, etc. Obviously if there were clear plans … well that would be meaningful.
Meanwhile, I guess this computer might be good news for folk organising garden parties.
If you stick your head out the door every day you can tell that things are going to be terrible weather wise these days. Build proper flood defences and mitigate against the weather instead of blowing money on something that will be obsolete in no time and provide a very partial notion of the dynamics of the he weather.
A key question that never seems to be answered is how accurate were the routine forecasts provided by the Met Office and how much back checking is actually undertaken to identify variance. Have i just lobbed a hand grenade into a cess pit?
How will the success of the new investment be calculated and reported and will this then be subjected to an independent audit?
The new computer is reportedly to be used to predict changes to the climate. It would be interesting to get an impartial, objective and independent forensic analysis of the systems and data used for this and the integrity of any output. Seaweed and pine cones anyone?
Whilst it might increase the met offices bragging rights no end, regardless of the power of the computer, it is trying to model a completely chaotic system. I did a RYA Yachtmaster offshore course a few years ago, of which a substantial part was weather. The textbooks will give you great detail on how weather systems work, and how the high/low pressure systems cause various phenomenas. At the end of each section, you often see a get out clause “For reasons that are not fully understood, sometimes the opposite happens” The money may be better spent on doing some long needed waterway and drainage maintenance and improvents. Our local Drainage board in Holderness has begged for more money for years, and the drains have not been dredges since the dredging machine was scrapped in the 50’s(?)
The low pressure winter system used to form up over the Russian steppes and send a bitter Noreaster and much snow all down the East of the UK and up the pennines. Today those lows are in the north atlantic, and are bringing cold wet air onto the west coast with the resultant flooding. Not “Climate change” just the same system as befire, shifted to the west!
While we may be able to get a more reliable forecast accuracy the key problem is that the authorities have to be able to react appropriately and timeously. Not helped by developers utilising whatever bit of land they can get their hands and spades on regardless of whether or not it is a sensible location.
I live in Livingston New Town I am currently 68. Like all new Towns the first thing the builders did was put in drainage. Several years ago the UK Government said that more new Towns would be built since then nothing has been planned Colin
No doubt it will be pre-programmed to adjust all formulae and forecasts to ensure climate change gets the blame.