An international collaborative research group such as RIKEN (RIKEN), Information and Communication Research Organization (NICT), and Osaka University has used the supercomputer "K computer" and the latest weather radar to "update every 100 seconds at a resolution of 30 m for 30 minutes. We have succeeded in reproducing the actual movement of the "guerrilla rainstorm" in detail by realizing the "weather forecast" simulation.
In recent years, guerrilla rainstorms, which cause sudden heavy rainfall locally, have increased, sometimes causing enormous damage.The current weather forecast is updated by taking in new observation data every hour with a resolution * coarser than 1 km by simulation using the Japan Meteorological Agency's supercomputer.However, with this accuracy, it is difficult to predict the guerrilla rainstorm that occurs when cumulonimbus clouds rapidly occur and develop in a few minutes.
This time, the research group used RIKEN's supercomputer "K computer" capable of high-definition simulation, and the state-of-the-art weather radar "Phaseed Array Weather Radar" developed by NICT and Osaka University.Weather forecasts usually use a method called "data assimilation" that combines simulation data and actual measurement data, but research creates technological innovation through "big data assimilation," which handles huge amounts of big data at orders of magnitude higher speed.On top of that, we succeeded in expressing the fine structure inside the cumulonimbus cloud with high accuracy, which cannot be expressed by the conventional data assimilation with a resolution of 30 km, by making full use of all the radar observation data with 100 m resolution obtained every 1 seconds.
The high-speed, high-definition weather forecast realized by this is said to revolutionize the weather forecast.In the future, we will speed up data transfer and calculation for practical use, and by shortening the processing of observation data obtained every 30 seconds from the current about 10 minutes to within 30 seconds, it is a guerrilla with higher accuracy and real time. It is said that heavy rain forecast will be realized.
* The distance between grid points when the atmosphere is arranged in a grid pattern and reproduced on a computer.Data collection processing is performed at that interval.
