SGI Origin 3000 Series Supercomputer at NOAA Laboratory
Better Prepares U.S. for Hurricane Season
1,152 SGI Processors Develop New, More Realistic Weather/Climate Models
Wednesday June 6, 8:31 am Eastern Time
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2001 hurricane season officially began June 1, and a recently installed SGI(TM) Origin(TM) 3000 series supercomputer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton (GFDL) in N.J., is helping the nation to better prepare for storms, high winds and flooding.
With five to seven hurricanes expected this hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30, the ever-growing U.S. population in coastal areas is vulnerable to storm surges from hurricanes and the dangers of inland flooding. But, with the latest supercomputing technology from SGI, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is developing more accurate hurricane forecasts to prevent the loss of life and to minimize property damage.
A 1,152-processor SGI Origin 3000 series supercomputer at GFDL is being used full time to address some of the most difficult but critical obstacles to developing new and more realistic models for predicting climate variability, detecting climate change and forecasting hurricanes. The massive computer system is being used to improve the accuracy and timeliness of NOAA's short-term weather warnings, seasonal forecasts and regional and global climate predictions.
``The SGI Origin 3000 series supercomputer ensures timely delivery of improved hurricane and seasonal forecast modeling capabilities to the National Weather Service and provides the best possible information to the nation regarding climate variability and change,'' said Dr. Ants Leetmaa, director, GFDL. ``The system will also deliver improved El Nino and La Nina forecast models to the National Weather Service.''
``The SGI(TM) supercomputer is also helping to implement a new way of doing business in community modeling standards for massively parallel computers, allowing easier, more effective collaborations among modelers within universities, other agencies and NOAA,'' said Leetma. ``GFDL's new supercomputer has resulted in an improved capability for research into hurricane forecast models and effective development of the next-generation climate models required to understand how long-term climate change impacts the United States.''
In late September 2000, NOAA awarded the Raytheon Company of Garland, Texas, a four-year, $34 million base contract to build the high-performance computing system. The total value of the contract, inclusive of all options, is approximately $67 million. Raytheon selected the SGI Origin 3000 series and its breakthrough NUMAflex(tm) modular concept to upgrade GFDL's supercomputing capabilities.
``The SGI Origin 3800 systems have the ability to perform more than 900 billion floating-point arithmetic operations per second and have more than four times the performance of the three Cray computers that they replace,'' said Ellis Bailey, Raytheon's GFDL program manager. ``The SGI systems recently passed acceptance testing with flying colors. As a result, the SGI Origin 3000 series technology will greatly improve GFDL's ability to meet the demands of its scientific research.''
Eight 128-processor SGI(TM) Origin(TM) 3800 systems form a large-scale cluster and two 64-processor SGI Origin 3800 systems serve as an analysis cluster. The smaller analysis cluster serves GFDL's data archive that is stored in three robotic tape libraries and is expected to reach 2PB in size by September 2003.
About SGI
SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at www.sgi.com.
About GFDL
GFDL is a federal research laboratory in the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce's NOAA. The laboratory performs comprehensive, long-lead-time research that is fundamental to the mission of NOAA.
For more than 40 years, GFDL has been one of the world's leading laboratories in using supercomputers and advanced numerical models to better understand the meteorology and oceanography of the planet. GFDL scientists developed the first global models of the ocean and atmosphere and the first ocean-atmosphere climate model.
Today's premier weather forecasting center, the European Center for Medium Range Forecasting, used GFDL models to get started. The technology required to make the successful El Nino forecasts at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, in the National Weather Service, was developed at GFDL. The current operational hurricane forecast model used by both the National Weather Service and the U.S. Navy was developed at GFDL.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a global technology leader that provides products and services in the areas of commercial and defense electronics and business and special-mission aircraft. Raytheon has operations throughout the United States and serves customers in 70 countries.
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NOTE: SGI, the SGI logo, NUMAflex and Origin are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Greg Slabodkin of SGI Federal, 301-595-2618, or slabodkin@sgi.com.
SOURCE: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
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