The Met Office has transferred to a new off-site supercomputer - which could make 14-day forecasts as accurate as seven-day equivalents.

英国气象局已转而使用一台新的异地超级计算机——这台计算机有望使14天的天气预报准确度与7天的预报相当。

Operating using Microsoft's cloud-based Azure system, the new computer could also help predict extreme weather further in advance and advance climate research.

这台新计算机采用微软的云端Azure系统运行， 还能够进一步提前预测极端天气，并推动气候研究的发展。

The weather agency used its first supercomputer 60 years ago, but until now it has almost always been run on site. For more than a month, Azure has been running off-site simultaneously with the Met Office's previous supercomputer, which has now been switched off.

该气象机构60年前就启用了首台超级计算机，但直到现在，这些计算机几乎一直都是在本地运行的。 一个多月以来，Azure系统一直在异地与英国气象局之前的那台超级计算机同时运行，而那台旧计算机现已关闭。

Chief executive officer Penny Endersby said on the agency's website that "a big change like this is like changing the engines when you're flying over the Atlantic" - noting that the new computer had already been running in parallel with its old system for more than a month.

首席执行官彭妮·恩德斯比在该机构网站上表示：“如此大规模的变革，就像在飞越大西洋时更换引擎一样”—— 她指出，这台新计算机已经与旧系统并行运行了一个多月。

"You can never have a stop, which is why we did the long parallel run with the old supercomputer," she added.

她补充道：“我们绝不能让服务中断，这就是为什么我们要让新超级计算机与旧超级计算机进行长时间的并行运行。”

"So, success at this phase is that nobody can tell the difference."

“因此，这一阶段取得的成功就是，没有人能察觉到任何差别。”

Charles Ewen, the weather agency's chief information officer, said the Met Office uses numerical weather prediction "to predict the future state of the atmosphere" which "takes the laws of physics that are fairly well understood and applies them at scale".

该气象机构的首席信息官查尔斯·尤恩表示， 英国气象局利用数值天气预报“来预测大气的未来状态”， 这一过程“采用了人们相当了解的物理定律，并将它们大规模应用”。

He added: "To do that is very, very computationally expensive. It's simulating the future state of the atmosphere.

他补充道：“要做到这一点，计算成本非常高昂。 因为它是在模拟大气的未来状态。”

"Operationally, that's 200 to 300 terabytes of information a day."

“在业务运营上，这每天会产生200到300太字节的信息量。”

Using Azure, he said the Met Office will be able to start fresh projects without having to build new infrastructure.

他还表示，利用Azure系统，英国气象局将能够启动全新的项目，而无需再构建新的基础设施。

Segolene Berthou, head of a research team working on the Met Office's environmental prediction capabilities, added that the supercomputer will also allow for a model to be run several times with slightly different parameters.

负责英国气象局环境预测能力研究团队的负责人塞戈莱娜·贝尔托补充说， 这台超级计算机还将允许使用略有不同的参数多次运行一个模型。

"The coupled system we're preparing is running faster and more smoothly on the new supercomputer," she said.

她说：“我们正在准备的这个耦合系统在新超级计算机上运行得更快、更顺畅。”

"This is very good news because it means we can now be even more confident in our climate projections and have longer slices of time running this model."

“这是一个非常好的消息，因为这意味着我们现在对我们的气候预测更加有信心，并且有更长的时间段来运行这个模型。”