Unexpected weather conditions, a mainstay of casual conversation, are an existential threat. Scientists plan to make predictions accurate enough to determine weather patterns a month in advance.
The barbecue disaster and cancellation of Wimbledon could be dealt a serious blow thanks to a new 15-year research program launched by the University of Reading in partnership with the Met Office and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The aim is to transform our ability to unravel the subtle influences that determine weather patterns and reveal the limits of real-world predictability.
“The main goal of our research is to be able to say what the weather will be like a month in advance,” said Professor Rowan Sutton, head of environmental studies at the University of Reading, but it is impossible to predict accurately. He emphasized that it was impossible. , he checks a month in advance whether a particular day will be sunny or rainy.
“But we would like to be able to say that four weeks before a certain date there is a good chance of either very wet and windy weather or a period of clear skies,” he added. “That doesn't guarantee you'll have sunshine on your wedding day, but it certainly has many useful uses, including for farmers and energy companies.”
Accurate advance weather forecasts will become increasingly important as the planet warms and extreme weather events increase, scientists say. The intensification of storms and droughts means that it becomes increasingly important to emphasize their time of arrival to protect lives and property.
Currently, meteorologists can make predictions more than a week out with reasonable accuracy. These will save the UK billions of pounds a year by providing warnings about upcoming storms, floods, droughts and potential flight disruptions, while also helping energy companies understand how weather conditions affect power generation. It is also useful for estimating the impact of
This is a huge improvement over the 1970s, when forecasts were only accurate one or two days in advance. “As a rule of thumb, the predictability of weather forecasts has improved by one day every decade since the middle of the last century,” says Professor Sarah Dance, a data assimilation expert at the University of Reading's School of Meteorology.
To achieve this accuracy, vast amounts of data are collected from automated weather stations dotting the countryside, deep-sea buoys that warn of incoming Atlantic storms, weather balloons, and transponders on aircraft, ships, and satellites. Masu. Billions of bytes of information are then fed into the world's most powerful supercomputers to create models of weather patterns and the changes that may affect them. As a result, predictions can now be made with incredible accuracy many days in advance.
Now, scientists want to take these developments even further, but meteorologists acknowledge that these improvements have limits. The number of variables involved in calculating weather patterns is vast and can ultimately combine to overwhelm long-term forecasting efforts. But there are ways to overcome some of these uncertainties, and a new University of Reading program entitled 'Advancing the frontiers of Earth system prediction' is designed to tackle them, they say. says.
“Cities are a good example,” says Professor Chris Merchant, an expert in ocean and Earth observations. “Buildings and roads are not included in current climate models, but they can have a big impact on the weather.
“Think of a place like London or Hyde Park. It can be a cool place even during a heatwave. It can also be very hot. It depends on how much moisture is in the ground. Such factors need to be included in the data used to make predictions,” added Merchant, who is leading the project, which is part of the Reading Forecasting Programme.
Understanding urban responses to weather can often be much more complex than rural responses, he added. “It may rain heavily, but the current model cannot distinguish between gardens and parks, or concrete and roads. Must contain variables.”
Another issue concerns the use of data, Dance added. “Currently, we can only use about 5% of the data we get from all sources. We need to find more ways to leverage that data and work at a finer scale so we can understand what's going on. We will be able to more accurately understand what is going on.”
This point was supported by the program's scientific director, Professor Pier Luigi Videil. “We're starting to figure things out at increasingly finer resolution, not only in the atmosphere but also in the oceans. This gives us insight into how heat is transported from the equator to the poles and how storms develop and bring We now have a better understanding of how wind and rain reach our shores. It also helps us with our predictions. ”
The results of the program will be important on many levels, he added. “Right now, we don't fully understand how predictable the real world is. So we have a theoretical understanding of what's going on and use that to push the limits of predictability. We're trying to find something. But it's more than just an intellectual exercise. If we get this right, it's going to make a big difference in people's lives.”