China has put a medium-range weather prediction system into professional operation by using updated powerful high-performance computer Shenwei-1 (SW-1), weather officials announced at the weekend.
Qiu Guoqing, director of the National Meteorological Center (NMC), told a group of scientists at a ceremony celebrating the operation of the SW-1 based Ensemble Numeral Weather Prediction System that it can improve the accuracy and extend the time limits of (medium-range predictions) weather changes from three to 10 days ahead.
The prediction system is one of the world's latest. It is capable of collecting 32 members of ensemble forecasts to reduce possible errors caused by a lack of data and their uncertainties, Qiu said, adding that so far, only a few of the world's developed countries have been able to adopt the system with high-performance computers.
Li Huang, deputy director of China Meteorological Administration, was confident that from now on, the new system will help NMC's weathermen tell the exact areas, hours and intensity of certain kinds of weather changes.
The system, which has been on a trial operation since December 1999, is the first and only practical achievement that has been made using SW-1, the Chinese-developed and manufactured super computer with a peak floating speed of about 384 billion times per second.
(China Daily 02/26/2001)
