It’s difficult to find an accurate forecast for more than 5 days into the future, for an up-coming music festival or sports event. Nonetheless, a team of researchers are investigating new technology to predict long range weather forecasts up to 85 years into the future.
The research, being headed up by the University of Bath and Exeter University, is aimed at providing scientists and engineers with a better understanding of how buildings are influence by weather conditions.
The research project has been financed by a £1,000,0000 grant Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Professor David Coley of the University of Bath has been appointed to lead the research team. In an interview he explained the importance of the research being carried out to help save lives caused by extreme weather conditions and natural disasters.
“In western civilisations we know the greatest contributor to weather-related deaths are short term extreme temperature changes, including both increases and decreases.
“These temporary temperature variations account for more weather-related deaths than all other weather events combined including lighting strikes, rain, flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes.
“It is important that we recognise the role buildings play in responding to and dealing with extreme weather conditions – buildings can keep people alive during extreme weather events, but they can also kill.
“The time series of example hourly weather we are devising in conjunction with testing these variations on different building designs will help us to better develop building designs that can safely and comfortably house occupants and avoid weather-related preventable deaths in the future.”
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The model for predicting long weather forecasts up to 85 years in the future is already being developed. When fine-tuned, it will be used to test how 1,200 buildings will react to weather patterns over the next 85 years.
The findings will be used to help future-proof new developments and guide refurbishments to better prepare for changes in weather conditions. Whether the model is suitable for long range weather forecasting will require further tests and data modeling.