A computer model is a computer program that is designed to simulate what might or what did happen in a situation. They are used in many ways including in astronomy, economics and sciences such as physics and biology. Computer models are used in fields such as earthquake performance simulation and making models of buildings.
Well known areas which use computer models:
- Models of the atmosphere for weather forecasts
- Climate models to predict climate change
- Agent-based modelling is used to simulate social interactions in artificial Intelligence
Computer modelling often uses numerical mathematics to approximate the real solution of the problem. Simulation techniques are then used to get values. Numerical weather forecasts are too inaccurate to give a good local prediction of the weather. Depending on the model, an area of several square kilometers may be modeled with only a few data points. As a result, the prediction is rarely more accurate than the model used at the start.