Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => In the Media... => Topic started by: Rick on Aug 06, 2008, 14:05:18

Title: Supercomputer to improve UK weather
Post by: Rick on Aug 06, 2008, 14:05:18
 :D

The Met Office, home of UK weather forecasting, is getting a shiny new supercomputer from IBM.

The £33m contract with IBM, which covers maintenance, support and a mid-life upgrade, will run until 2013. The machine should have total peak performance of 1 Petaflop by 2011 - some 30 times more powerful than the Met's current supercomputer, a cluster of NEC SX-8 machines which replaced a Cray in 2004.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/06/met_office_supercomputer/
Title: Re: Supercomputer to improve UK weather
Post by: MarkS on Aug 06, 2008, 14:26:45

Rick,

But how does that manage to improve the weather?

Mark
Title: Re: Supercomputer to improve UK weather
Post by: Mike on Aug 06, 2008, 14:31:54
By pumping out so much heat that it causes global warming making more snow on mountain tops for skiing and hotter weather in the UK.
Title: Re: Supercomputer to improve UK weather
Post by: Rick on Aug 06, 2008, 16:25:51
The headline's lifted directly from the source.  You'll notice I stuck this fella --> :D before the report. I'm quite sure the headline writer had tongue firmly in cheek.