Where Does All the Computer Power Go?

Meteorological Forecasting

BBC News reports:

This week, about 150 of the world's top climate modelers have converged on Reading for a four day meeting to plan a revolution in climate prediction.

And they have plenty of work to do. So far modelers have failed to narrow the total bands of uncertainties since the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990.

The article states that while climate modelers believe that they have the theoretical knowledge necessary to improve the accuracy of climate predictions, they do not have the computer power needed to use that knowledge. Several hundred million pounds of investment in supercomputers will be needed to obtain the 1000 fold increase in power needed to obtain predictions of the accuracy needed by policy makers.


The Sunday Express (India) reports that the National Climate Center (at the India Meteorological Department) "Shimla Office is a swanky place where the weather data is available at the click of the mouse." That office, with a staff of 13 is responsible for the Government of India's forecast of monsoon precipitation."

The rain forecasters know they have to be as close to actual rainfall as possible since long range forecast has many social and economic impacts. “The total monsoon rainfall during the season has a statistically significant relationship with the crop yield, generation of power, irrigation schedule over the country.”

This year the IMD is using two different forecasting models: a statistical model used for years to forecast the monsoon, and a new dynamic model. The most important source of data for the team is a 100 year series of observations available from the National Data Center on CD's. The center also accesses meteorological maps from all over the world via the Internet.

‘The IMD also takes into account the experimental forecasts prepared by other national institutes like Indian Institute of Tropical Meterology, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation (CMMACS), Bangalore and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF),” adds Rajeevan.

The monsoon in India is an important annual event, which by affecting a huge area results in very large economic impacts, even though rural India is poor. The Indian scientific capacity is very strong, and India has invested heavily in information and communications technology (and is reaping benefits from that investment in many fields). The India experience in monsoon forecasting is not likely to be comparable to meteorological activity in other developing countries (other than perhaps China), but could serve as a model for African and Latin American regional efforts,