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NWP and computing power
Via insideHPC, a Washington Post piece on the US National Weather Service's plans to increase their supercomputing capacity. But what I really found interesting was a link to a 2012 blog posting by Cliff Mass criticising the performance of NWS' model when comparied with ECMWF and the Met Office.
Mass' comments remind me of a discussion I had with someone from another met service — not the NWS &mdahs; who was talking earnestly & excitedly about their forthcoming procurement and what a huge difference it was going to make to their supercomputing capacity. The scientist I was with breezily dismissed this, saying "You don't need more computer capacity. It's not going to help because all your models are at least 20 years out of date..." It may have been true, but it left the other completely crushed.
Mass' comments remind me of a discussion I had with someone from another met service — not the NWS &mdahs; who was talking earnestly & excitedly about their forthcoming procurement and what a huge difference it was going to make to their supercomputing capacity. The scientist I was with breezily dismissed this, saying "You don't need more computer capacity. It's not going to help because all your models are at least 20 years out of date..." It may have been true, but it left the other completely crushed.