Latest news with #climateresearch
Sky News
3 days ago
- Climate
- Sky News
Longer term weather forecasts could get more accurate - thanks to the cloud
The Met Office has transferred to a new off-site supercomputer - which could make 14-day forecasts as accurate as seven-day equivalents. Operating using Microsoft's cloud-based Azure system, the new computer could also help predict extreme weather further in advance and advance climate research. The weather agency used its first supercomputer 60 years ago, but until now it has almost always been run on site. For more than a month, Azure has been running off-site simultaneously with the Met Office's previous supercomputer, which has now been switched off. Chief executive officer Penny Endersby said on the agency's website that "a big change like this is like changing the engines when you're flying over the Atlantic" - noting that the new computer had already been running in parallel with its old system for more than a month. "You can never have a stop, which is why we did the long parallel run with the old supercomputer," she added. "So, success at this phase is that nobody can tell the difference." Charles Ewen, the weather agency's chief information officer, said the Met Office uses numerical weather prediction "to predict the future state of the atmosphere" which "takes the laws of physics that are fairly well understood and applies them at scale". He added: "To do that is very, very computationally expensive. It's simulating the future state of the atmosphere. "Operationally, that's 200 to 300 terabytes of information a day." Using Azure, he said the Met Office will be able to start fresh projects without having to build new infrastructure. Segolene Berthou, head of a research team working on the Met Office's environmental prediction capabilities, added that the supercomputer will also allow for a model to be run several times with slightly different parameters. "The coupled system we're preparing is running faster and more smoothly on the new supercomputer," she said.
The Independent
20-05-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
UK weather forecasts become ‘more accurate' after Met Office upgrade
The Met Office has upgraded to a new supercomputer, which could make 14-day forecasts nearly as accurate as seven-day forecasts. Forecasters hope the supercomputer, operated by Microsoft's cloud-based system called Azure, will predict extreme weather events further in advance and help to advance climate research across the world. For more than a month, Azure was running off-site simultaneously with the Met Office 's previous supercomputer, which has now been switched off. Charles Ewen, the Met Office's chief information officer, said: 'People ask how a bigger computer improves the weather forecast. 'One big thing this new computer will allow us to do in the near future is to be able to produce 14-day forecasts with a similar kind of accuracy than we can today for seven, eight, nine days.' The weather agency used its first supercomputer 60 years ago, and until now, they have almost always been run on site. Azure will allow the Met Office to start fresh projects without having to build new infrastructure, he added. He said: 'We use a technique to predict the future state of the atmosphere called numerical weather prediction. 'So that takes the laws of physics that are fairly well understood and applies them at scale to observations of the current state of the atmosphere. 'To do that is very, very computationally expensive. It's simulating the future state of the atmosphere. Operationally, that's 200 to 300 terabytes of information a day.' Segolene Berthou, who leads a team of researchers working on the Met Office's environmental prediction capabilities, said the supercomputer will permit researchers to run a model several times with slightly different parameters. 'That will give us quite a large variety of forecasts because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, and that can help us capture the extremes with more days in advance,' she explained. 'The coupled system we're preparing is running faster and more smoothly on the new supercomputer. 'This is very good news because it means we can now be even more confident in our climate projections and have longer slices of time running this model.' A cloud system will make it easier for others to use the Met Office's backlog of data for climate research, the weather service said. Forecasters are also hoping Azure will allow them to adapt its use of artificial intelligence, however, they are not yet sure how the supercomputer will be augmented with machine learning. The Met Office has funded some of its researchers to start advanced degrees in machine learning and has offered a training programme on the subject. Simon Vosper, its science director, said: 'We have huge increases in capacity, which will enable us to take our science forward. 'With the new Azure-based capability, we'll be enhancing resolution, running many more models and introducing new scientific complexity.' The weather agency said: 'Met Office forecasts are used in aviation, defence, critical infrastructure, and shipping, as well as for predicting storms, floods, and gauging if Sunday will be suitable for a barbecue. 'The decision to entrust that critical work to an outside institution like Microsoft came only after a long process, informed by its own expertise in technology.'
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Government to Stop Tracking the Costs of Extreme Weather
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday it would stop tracking the cost of the country's most expensive disasters, those which cause at least $1 billion in damage. The move would leave insurance companies, researchers and government policymakers without information to help understand the patterns of major disasters like hurricanes, drought or wildfires, and their economic consequences, starting this events are becoming more frequent or severe as the planet grows hotter, although not all disasters are linked to climate change. It's the latest effort from the Trump administration to restrict or eliminate climate research. In recent weeks the administration has dismissed the authors working on the nation's biggest climate assessment, planned to eliminate National Parks grants focused on climate change, and released a budget plan that would cut significantly climate science from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Energy and Defense departments. Researchers and lawmakers criticized Thursday's decision. Jesse M. Keenan, associate professor and director of the Center on Climate Change and Urbanism at Tulane University in New Orleans, said ending the data collection would cripple efforts by federal and state governments to set budgets or make decisions on investment in infrastructure. 'It defies logic,' he said. Without the database, 'the U.S. government's flying blind as to the cost of extreme weather and climate change.' Few institutions can duplicate the kind of information provided by the database, said Virginia Iglesias, a climate researcher at the University of Colorado. 'It's one of the most consistent and trusted records of climate-related economic loss in the country,' she said. 'The power of the database lies in its credibility.' So-called billion-dollar disasters — those with costs that balloon to seven figures are more — have been increasing over time. In the 1980s, when NOAA began compiling these lists, there were just over three per year, on average, when adjusted for inflation. For the period from 2020 to 2024, the average was 23 per year. In total, at least 403 such events have occurred in the United States since 1980. Last year there were 27, a tally second only to 2023 (which had 28). Last year's disasters included hurricanes Helene and Milton, which together caused about $113 billion in damages and more than 250 deaths, a severe hailstorm in Colorado that caused about $3 billion in damages and a yearlong drought across much of the country that caused $5 billion in damages and claimed the lives of more than 100 people from heat exposure. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information plans to stop tracking these billion-dollar disasters in response to 'evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes,' the agency said in an email. When asked, the agency did not say whether another branch of NOAA or federal agency would continue tracking and publicly reporting the price tag of such disasters. The announcement said the agency would make archived data from 1980 to 2024 available. But the dollar amount of disasters from 2025 on, such as the Los Angeles wildfires and their estimated billions of dollars of damage, would not be tracked and reported to the public. 'You can't fix what you don't measure,' said Erin Sikorsky, the director of The Center for Climate and Security. 'If we lose this information about the costs of these disasters, the American people and Congress won't know what risks climate is posting to our country.' Other institutions or agencies would likely be unable to duplicate the data collection because it includes proprietary insurance information that companies are cautious to share, Ms. Sikorsky said. 'It's a pretty unique contribution.'
