But clouds aren’t part of climate models.
“Most current climate models have 200-kilometer grids, roughly the distance from Laramie to Denver, Wang says. However, most clouds are smaller than that, but their impact still has to be measured within that larger grid. With the supercomputer, individual clouds can be analyzed by using models with smaller grids. This could lead to improved accuracy and details of cloud behavior in climate models. “The more computer power we have, we’ll be able to simulate better clouds,” Wang says. “If we can simulate better clouds, we can provide better forecasting.”