Let's hope they put it upstairs


OMS

The met office can only accurately predict the weather for about 4 days in advance. Firstly there is little one can do about flooding with that period of notice,secondly, even the weather doesn't know how its likely to behave with any accuracy greater than a week or so.

Although, we have enough information to predict how our weather will behave from season to season for which we could make preparations such as building less houses, establishing and protecting natural flood plains, maintaining waterways and drainage ditches.

Legh

I watched the report on the news last night and while they won't be able to predict further into the future (due to limitations in the algorithms) they will be able to predict much more accurately where the rain will fall (100m squares instead of 1.5km squares) and thus be more accurate with the flood predictions.

I can't help feeling that it doesn't really provide that much help - being told "Your house is likely to flood - get out!" is not a lot different from "Your house is going to flood - get out!" and much worse than either is "Your house is going to flood because we spent the money on a Met Office computer instead of local flood defences."

Alasdair

In answer to the frustrations that the flood people are experiencing, the 'I' reported today that 250,000 houses were built from 2002 to 2014 on what was flood plains.

Whether one believes the 'I' is another matter as it hasn't been reported elsewhere.

Legh

Let's put this in perspective: Tesco's annual revenue (for example) is 52 billion pounds. Climate issues are arguably (I'd certainly argue it) the biggest single issue facing us.  One of the favourite arguments of climate change deniers is "you can't trust the models". Pull this all together and spending £1.2bn on improving the models is absolute peanuts in terms of our economy.


That doesn't mean we can't spend on flood defences as well! But we're not going solve this one with a couple more drains and a few sandbags. This needs long term planning and action, and that needs the best data we can get. And no, I don't work for, or have any connection whatsoever with, the Met Office or the computer supply company. 


Cheers,


Andy

Andy,

I agree that it doesn't mean we can't spend on flood defences as well, but if the money is spent on the supercomputer, there is definitely £1.2bn that can't be spent somewhere else. (The income of the Met Office last year was just under £240m)

My problem with this is that I agree that the computer will give better information and allow more accurate predictions of the where and when of flooding, but this only gives a few days warning to put things in place. Proper flood planning needs to be a long term solution, not a reaction to imminent flood predictions. With regard to the long term predictions, I don't think the new computer will give any better information than an extrapolation of current trends.

Is it worthwhile getting a new supercomputer for the Met Office to provide more accurate forecasts? I think on balance it probably is.

Is a new supercomputer going to make a difference in dealing with floods? I think on balance probably not.

Should the announcement have suggested that the new computer was a solution to the present flooding crisis around the UK? I don't think so.

Alasdair

Tesco's annual revenue (for example) is 52 billion pounds.

The gross income was closer to 63Bn...But I very much doubt that Tescos would be interested in sponsoring any flood initiative as their net profit was for last year 1.32Bn (as found on google). This sort of expenditure would have to come from a governemnt initiative.

This parallel quantum processing computer or whatever  will be able to predict the amount of rain to fall in a  limited area within a few hours of detection.

So what is the purpose of being able to know how much rain is about to fall in a 100sq m of ground over the next hour? The solution, as I see it, is to look at seasonal changes and plan for a renewal of flood plains and new resevoire lakes. The Netherlands seems to have interesting methods of reducing flooding.

Legh