Weather bureau to get supercomputer

by Rich Bowden - Mar 20 2009, 02:00

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and the Australian National University (ANU) will receive two supercomputers in a bid to better predict destructive weather patterns that cause bushfires, tsunamis and floods.

The new mega computers, capable of performing 1.5 trillion calculations per second, will also be used to accurately show the effects of climate change. The BOM's chief information officer, Phil Tannenbaum, told The Australian newspaper the system would be fully operational by 2011.

“This supercomputer will allow us to map the effects of climate change with what we call an ‘earth model’ which can measure both weather and climate at the same time. Previously we were only able to do weather forecasting or climate forecasting, but not both at the same time,” Mr. Tannenbaum said.

The $20 million AUD system, being constructed by Sun Microsystems, will work together with a similar, though more powerful, system at the Australian National University in Canberra. ANU supercomputer facility head Dr. Ben Evans said the facility was one of the top 30 HPC in the world.

“Particularly as we implement the next generation of high-resolution climate models that further our understanding of this complex natural system,” Dr. Evans said.

“Previously we couldn’t effectively participate in discussion on climate change because we didn’t have the data to back it up, even though we have a lot of expertise here in Australia,” he added.

“But this supercomputer gives us a platform that allows us to produce better results and participate in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and actually have a voice at the table.”

The supercomputer will also give the BOM better and more accurate weather predictions over the short term, said Chris Ryan, head of the Bureau's National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre to news.com.au.

“I think the biggest impact that people will see in the shorter term is that the accuracy of the shorter-term forecasts -- days one to four, or five -- will get better,” he said.

“That means that -- as we saw in the bushfires on the 7th of February -- forecast of the wind speed and the changes will be accurate enough to enable planning by people like the firefighters to take more trust in our forecasts and deploy their resources more efficiently.”

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