The Department of Meteorology has a number of scientists who use computing to forecast weather, to analyze climate, to visualize data -- in fact computers have become indispensable to modern-day scientists who confront relationships between data and computations.
In recent years there has been a revolution in the way computing is done. Serial Computers were used predominantly. This type of computer was developed in the middle of this century as the need for complex calculations and the manipulation of large data bases became evident.
However, in the last decade
these serial computers have shown
diminished capacity relative to
the growth of data and complexity.
A large part of the scientific (and
commercial) community have moved
over to Parallel Computers.
Now the central processing units
are reproduced many times in
a single box (mainframe). The
memory (distributed and shared)
is also enlarged. This is often
a cheap way to increase the capacity.
The main drawback is the need for
advanced software to drive the
computer, and advanced peripherals
to handle and visualize the large amount
of data.
Research activities within the Department of Meteorology
frequently require use of powerful workstations
as well as remote supercomputers. The
performance of
these workstations is rapidly approaching that of the
of the fastest supercomputers.
Further information about the relative performance of computer systems
is available
here.
