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Why we need supercomputers? |
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2. Spatial resolution of the models
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Europe mapped in grids with different resolutions: distance between grid points (from above left downward right): 500km, 250km, 150km, 100km. The finer the resolution the more accurate the prognoses. |
The accuracy of climate prognoses is substantially limited by the resolution of the models,
respectively the grid size of the cells being the basis for the numerical simulations. A finer
grid size results in more accurate prognoses of regional climate changes. But halving the
distance between two grid points already produces four times as much grid points and
requires for numerical reasons the tenfold compute performance. Therefore scientist had
to wait for the new super computer to approach questions such as “Is it going to rain
more often in middle Europe?”.
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