The Government is set to invest £1.2bn in the latest supercomputing technology to help strengthen the UK's resilience to extreme weather events and climate change.
Managed by the Met Office, the supercomputing capacity will help to improve severe weather and climate forecasting and will be used to inform Government policy.
The news comes after a week of travel disruption, flooding and loss of life as the UK was battered by two major storms - Ciara and Dennis.
The Met already provides detailed weather prediction every hour and Ciara and Dennis, and the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018, 'were forecast five days in advance', it said.
However, Britain's flood defences were once again breached raising questions about the level of investment in the Environment Agency.
South Wales police declared a major incident on Sunday in response to severe flooding and have been working to evacuate the worst-hit communities.
The Met Office's current supercomputer contains enough storage to hold over 100 years’ worth of high definition films and takes in more than 215 billion weather observations from across the world every day.
The new supercomputer will replace those due for renewal in 2022, increasing the Met Office's computing capacity six-fold.
Around £854m of the overall investment will be spent on the new supercomputing capability, which will be rolled out between 2022 and 2032, Government officials said.
It is hoped the supercomputer will provide:
- More sophisticated rainfall predictions, helping the Environment Agency rapidly deploy mobile flood defences
- Better forecasting at airports so they can plan for potential disruption; and
- More detailed information for the energy sector to help them mitigate against potential energy blackouts and surges
Chair of the Science Review Group Professor Ted Shepherd said: 'The improved processing power will deliver a step-change in weather forecasting and climate modelling capability for the UK, such as the further development of the Earth Systems Model, which involves collaboration with the many UKRI-NERC funded research centres.'
Business and energy secretary and COP26 President Alok Sharma said the new investment would help inform the deployment of flood defences.
Britain will be hosting the UN climate summit COP26 in November in Glasgow this year.
The preparations have so far been mired in controversy however after the former COP26 president Claire Perry O'Neill was abruptly sacked and complained about the Government's approach to the issue while tensions between Holyrood and Westminster have also surfaced.
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