Greens pick peer-to-peer networks for better weather

A Cambridge-based research institute has been created with the help of government money to examine how technology can be used to solve environmental problems.

The National Institute for Environmental e-Sciences will research new ways to harness high-power computing to analyse environmental data.

Dr Martin Dove, director of the centre, said the project will find new ways to use spare computing power across the globe to solve immensely complex calculations.

"We will be using a mixture of supercomputers and lots of small computers. For example, we will look at ways to use thousands of PCs that lie dormant overnight in UK universities to provide the processor power."

Dr Dove said the aim of the project is to provide computer simulations in an order of magnitude far greater than is possible at the moment.

Computers will be engaged in modelling large-scale systems such as climate, weather and oceans, as well as small-scale systems such as the way molecules of pollutants can be trapped in soil.

Cambridge University is benefiting from a grant from the National Environmental Research Centre to found the institute.

For more information on NIEES see: http://www.escience.cam.ac.uk/niees/