Our research has been vital to developing ENDGame, a critical component of the Met Office’s weather and climate prediction models. ENDGame is enabling the Met Office to refine resolution of global weather forecasts from 25km to 10km, better forecast accuracy and model robustness, and further strengthening their position as a world leading service.
The improved weather forecasts deliver around £1.5 billion in benefits to the UK economy, are enhancing public safety in severe weather and are informing the climate change projections that are vital for mitigation and adaptation policy.
ENDGame is a critical component of all Met Office weather forecasting activity. It uses enormously complex systems built around detailed computer models but was previously limited in its scalability, robustness, stability and accuracy.
Our team’s innovative work improved scalability by understanding the effect of different back-substitution strategies on error growth decay, enabling the computer code to execute faster. This increased efficiency enabled ENDGame to run a more complex algorithm, improving forecast model resolution in approximately the same time as its predecessor.
We also made key contributions to developing a numerically stable formulation that enables ENDGame to run reliably and dramatically reduce operational model failures. We’re also enabling more accurate capture of the atmospheric circulation that is crucial for weather and climate prediction.
In working collaboratively with the Met Office Dynamics Research team, we’ve developed a vital tool that is underpinning the delivery of major economic, public safety and policy benefits here in the UK and around the world.
Most of the Met Office’s business areas rely on its world-class numerical model, of which the ENDGame is a core component. Internationally, ENDGame is maintaining the Met Office’s reputation as an industry leader and has been implemented by international partners including the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, the Korean Met Service, Met Service Singapore, and the NMS of the Philippines.
Improved forecasting accuracy, dissemination of warnings, and resulting mitigating action is also associated with saving many tens of lives each year from the direct impacts of extreme weather events that include coastal flooding and heatwaves.
Our work is also feeding directly into climate change projections that are essential in informing mitigation and adaption policies at local, national and international levels.
We’re continuing to explore how next generation supercomputer architectures can further improve computational efficiency, accuracy and stability and our work is underpinning the Met Offices strategy which will see an investment of up to £1.2 billion over the next ten years.