Weather supercomputer used to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters
Excerpts from the story by the Daily Mail See WUWT’s original story on this
The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters.
The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon.
It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
The computer used 1.2 megawatts to run – enough to power 1,000 homesThe machine was hailed as the ‘future of weather prediction’ with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.
However the Met Office’s HQ has now been named as one of the worst buildings in Britain for pollution – responsible for more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
It says 75 per cent of its carbon footprint is produced by the super computer meaning the machine is officially one of the country’s least green machines.
Green campaigners say it is ‘ironic’ that a computer designed to help stave-off climate change is responsible for such high levels of pollution.
But Met Office spokesman Barry Grommett said the computer was ‘vital’ to British meteorology and to help predict weather and environmental change.
He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’
The figures have been published by the Department of Communities and Local Government which calculated the ratings and emissions of every public building in the country.
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“We couldn’t do what we do without it.” – like botch the BBQ summer forecast?
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The true carbon footprint must include all of the sa’s, dba’s,programmers,project managers,scientists, etc. offices which may or may not be in this one building. Their traveling to and from work along with their lunch hour’s carbon output, etc must be calculated. Is there a Disaster Recovery site located in some other building ? Backup tapes may be driven to other locations also. There are probably many maintenance workers there all of the time – their travel co2 output along with everything they do that is related to working on at this site must be calculated. All told, the carbon footprint here is much greater than what’s suggested.
Sounds a lot to me like, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Give me a Pilot, a Farmer/Rancher,a Crabber,and a Fisherman, and I could
do as well prediction wise as that HAL 5000 clone.
“Dave.what are you Doing?””I’m predicting Global Warming,Dave.”‘Dave,What are you doing with that bucket of snow?””My access hatch is open Dave,”
“Dave!'”Mewy had a widdle Wamb—“..
Retired Engineer:
I do believe the simple explanation for a mere Teraflop lives in those three little letters on the monoliths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS
Przemysław Pawełczyk:
Perhaps you need to look up the meanings of:
Irony
Sarcasm
Having someone insist that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” while going out and buying size 100 shoes is “ironic”.
Thomas J. Arnold. (08:28:01) :
“There is a delicious irony here!”
Oh, the environy! heh
“We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.”
Is he saying that without this *staggering* computing power the Met Office would be even more wrong than they are now?
Or is he saying that it takes that a computer that big to be as wrong as they were this summer and that they’ll need a lot more power if they’re going to be even more wrong in the future?
Just asking.
Mike.
Oh the hypocracy! On a recent visit to New York I realised just how basic our weather reports are. We need to stop dumbing down meteorology… it needs to be easier to access. I hope this supercomputer will help the Met Office give me the info I want!
Yet more irony:
“We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.”
…. so they can try to throw the rest of us back into the dark ages.
Boudu, that’s a deep thought.
Make ’em run it on solar & wind power , how about that??
It’s not like they forecast the weather 1/2 as well as well documented skeptics who don’t use super-computer modelling… Like that guy you’ve done the articles about who’s appealing to the UK Government to consider his forecasting methods based on his track record the last 3 years vs. the Met.
We should start a challenge. If he outperforms them again for the next 3 years – he gets the supercomputer! Think they’d be willing to take personal responsibility for their folly? 😉
After all they say: “The machine was hailed as the ‘future of weather prediction’ with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.” More accurate than what? The devil is in the details!
Green AGW Climate Scientist and Activist Motto: Don’t do as I do. Just do as I say. And BTW, give me your money please…it is all for a good emotional cause. (roll out photo of stranded Polar Bear on an ice flow)
I get quite irritated when journalists (and other ignorants) write something like “and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy” . “Watt” is not “energy”, energy is “Watthours”. Watt is rated power (no pun intended, thinking of the name of this webpage), and 1.2 MW 24 hours a day 365 days a year (which is normal for a computer of this sort) is around 11000 MWh since a year is approximately 9000 hours (or 8760 hours if not a leap year, otherwise 8784 hours). Divide that by 1000 and you get 11000 kWh, which could be close to what a home consumes in a year. So that is perhaps not so far from the truth.
My own house is heated electrically and consumes about 15000 kWh in a year (using a heat pump). About 3000 of that is probably my computers… The climate in the Gothenburg area in Sweden is probably colder than in Britain, so a similar house could need less energy there. If not heated electrically even a large home would of course consume much less energy, perhaps 5000-8000 kWh (depending on number of PC:s running 24/7/365 of course).
On the other hand – 1.2 MW is really NOT a great deal of power for a BIG computer. You would only need around 4800 ordinary, rather inexpensive PC:s to equate that if they are rated at 250 W each (which is low). Can’t say I find that terribly exciting.
“Retired engineer” mentioned 2 kW per home (average power during the year I would guess), multiply by 9000 and you get 18000 kWh. Which is quite a lot if the house is not electrically heated. What kind of insulation would that imply :-)?
Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Computers are a necessary and important tool. It is the programmers’ fault if the results are not useful.GIGO.
It is the mentality and the training of climatologists that has to change. So that GIGO can become CICO (correct input correct output).
It could be used for true chaotic modeling, if it is powerful enough. The carbon footprint is immaterial, as carbon is not a pollutant anyway.
With a 1.2 megawatt, 1000 megabyte computer, their forecast for the rainfall expected in autumn 2009, published on their web site yesterday is:
“For Europe, including the UK, at this stage there is no clear signal for the amounts of autumn rainfall.”
Well that was megabucks/pounds well spent then. Or maybe they are still stinging from the BBQ summer backlash. Of course they are still predicting “average or above average” temperatures, but that’s a given.
Repeat … CO2 is not pollution!
OT: does anyone know how many sun spotless days we are now at? I keep looking at the little orange disc on the right panel of the site, and I never see a spot. Have we continued to be spotless?
Thanks…
Mark,
“CO2 is not pollution!”
Amen.
A major problem of the AGW enthusiasts is that they cannot get figures in the proper perspective. A supercomputer running 24/7 should not be compared with the average load of a household, where most appliances are used for a small fraction of the time at maximum load.
A similar comparison would be to say it uses the power of 700 Ferrari. How so?
In actual running the computer uses 1200KW or 1600bhp. This is about equivalent to the maximum power output of 3 Ferrari 360s.
However your typical average Ferrari will on do 3000 miles per year. Let us say that is 150 hours, with an average energy power output of 100kw (134bhp) when running. 150 hours is 1.7% of a year, so average energy output is a puny 1.7kw (2.3bhp). 1200kw/1.7 is about 700.
Have you checked out the materials that these new “Green and Energy Efficient” building materials are made from?
Paint job.
Without that monster computer, they can’t prove that they need laws to clamp down on the energy usage of normal citizens. Hypocrasy is alive and well in the UK.
Sorry to have OT’d, but I found my answer. Guess I should have looked first. For anyone else interested, as there are blog article popping up about it now, here are a couple links:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/Blank_Sun_Continues.htm
Thanks…
Send them a slide rule, a statistics for dummies book and a couple of wet fingers.
Przemysław Pawełczyk (08:07:13) :stated:
Quote Mr Watts,
What’s the purpose of (re)publishing such poppycock about green/carbon footprints, the biggest polluter, etc information platitudes concerning supercomputers on your sci blog which gained popularity thanks to scientific weblogs, not political ones or other idiotic topics?
Supercomputers need a lot of energy. You know physics too well.
Too many times lately I wonder whether you are immune enough to green propaganda.
Regards unquote
I live in United Kingdom and have been exposed to three faulty summer predictions and last winter’s complete failure to predict the cold/snow. It would be fine if their ability to predict increased, but since they are wedded to AGW it remains garbage in, garbage out and, therefore, they just get garbage out quicker at a greater rate of pollution than before.
All that money, all that energy, all that horrid carbon footprint and a bit of seaweed nailed to a fencepost is STILL a more accurate indicator of the British weather…