Topics : Tools

Computing Hardware and Support

Deciphering the vast complexity of the atmosphere requires world-class computing resources. NCAR serves hundreds of researchers around the globe, as well as its staff scientists, with one of the world's largest computing facilities devoted to the atmospheric and related sciences. NCAR supercomputers played a major role in running climate model simulations in support of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

NCAR's fleet of supercomputers is led by blueice, which arrived at the Mesa Lab in the fall of 2006. After months of testing, the new supercomputer went into production mode in February 2007. In addition to having a peak performance of 12 teraflops, blueice is expected to deliver a sustained performance of as much as 2 teraflops. Sustained performance, which measures a system’s computational rate while running a workload of atmospheric, oceanic, and geoscience models, is considered the best indicator of a system’s usability. Blueice will be the first supercomputer at NCAR to pass the sustained-teraflop milestone.

Joining blueice at NCAR are a variety of other machines by IBM and other manufacturers. Together, they provide valuable support for scientists at NCAR and those at collaborating universities, who can access the computers remotely for specific projects. Some parts of UOP and NCAR maintain additional smaller computing facilities for their own staff and collaborators.

The huge amounts of data generated by NCAR's supercomputers are preserved in a variety of ways. NCAR's Mass Storage System manages more than 22 million files containing more than 1,800 terabytes in all--many times more data than in the entire holdings of the Library of Congress. A subset of this data provides a thorough portrait of climate over the last half of the 20th century.

Scientists can access these and other holdings through NCAR's new Community Data Portal. This Web-based site provides powerful search-and-browse capabilities across many of the center's most valuable research datasets.

Visualization brings the modeling work of NCAR, UOP, and their collaborators to life. A growing team of visualization specialists works with scientists to transform complex output into three-dimensional animations. The visual representations help scientists get a handle on poorly understood processes, from the dispersion of hazardous gases to the rampage of a wildland fire.

Along with hardware and software support for supercomputing, NCAR's computing specialists carry out research to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of model development and to improve computational performance. NCAR is a leader in a national collaboration, the Earth System Modeling Framework, that will allow some of the nation's most widely used climate and weather models to work together more easily. The ESMF will also permit vast amounts of observational data to be assimilated into the models.

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