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The basic principles of computer modelling

Dr David Chapman discusses the basic principles of computer modelling.
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What are the basic principles of computer aided modelling for climatic analysis
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In the main, we usually run weather simulations for conditions such as sun and wind. However, depending on where we are in the world or the area we want to model in the world, we might be looking to model different conditions in addition to this. For example, if you were looking at planning a town in the subarctic, you might want to consider how we can model snow or say if we’re in a tropical area, there would be other conditions we might want to add in there. So whilst we were going to focus initially on sun and wind, we can extend that power to conditions that we can analyze within this computer environment.
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Equally, these simulations can be generated for different times of the day, different weeks of the year or different months, or they can be run for a particular moment, for example, the equinoxes. However, the basic idea is that we will use these simulations to be able to analyze the quality and attractiveness of space. We can use such visualizations to assess, say, for example, if we are developing a scheme which part of a city we might locate an outdoor cafe, or if we looked at a particular space where we might want to locate seating to allow the benefits to be given by the sun, or we equally provide protection from the wind.
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So during this part of the MOOC, we’re going to use our computer model to understand, simulate and analyze a space in terms of its climatic conditions.

Dr David Chapman discusses the basic principles of computer modelling, focusing on:

  • Weather simulations

  • Sun and wind

  • Weather conditions

  • Different points in the day or year

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