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Meteorology is
perhaps the greatest consumer of the advanced computer industry.
Nowadays 30-50 computational forecasts are made daily in the biggest
forecast centers which have some deflection. The expert picks out the
probable weather from the data of the collective forecasts. The
meteorological models need computers with the biggest computing
capacity available on the globe. In the past, computers’ content and
operational ability was not enough to make adequate weather forecasts.
Among others
this was the reason why we had to wait almost 25 years until the
accuracy of the computational forecast could be rivaled with the
traditional forecast method. The engagement
of faster computers have meant to the meteorologists, that atmosphere
models were increasingly accurate and detailed.
The meaning of
GRID is that computers connected to a network can accomplish a task in
need of huge computing capacity by dividing it among each other. With
this a supercomputer-performance storage capacity and computing
efficiency comes off, even in desktop computer environment for only
fragments of the price of a supercomputer. The
available computing capacity on the one hand can be used in the models’
development, on the other hand it can be used int he virtual forecast
calculation. Nowadays there are several GRID projects running in
meteorology.
Based on a
GRID system climate project, several british universities and the
British Meteorological Institute have joined forces in order to build a
worldwide „presumption-based forecast” for the clime changes that can
occur in our century. The project examines whether the global warming
causes the change of the Gulf Stream or not. If it happens to be true,
then what consequences can we expect.
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