ACADEMIA

More than One-Third of Contributors to IPCC's Fourth Assessment Represent Institutions Whose Scientists Rely on SGI Solutions: More than one-third of the contributors to the latest report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represent institutes whose scientific studies rely on solutions from SGI. "Climate Change 2007, the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report" reflects the current state of knowledge on climate change compiled by 585 scientists from around the world. Some 200 are affiliated with laboratories, government agencies or research institutes that conduct weather and climate studies with SGI compute, storage and visualization systems. "The remarkable complexity of the Earth's climate system is best understood by combining insights extracted from the Earth's (paleoclimate) history, global satellite observations of ongoing climate change, and global climate simulations on high-performance computers," said Dr. James E. Hansen, head of research at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a contributor to the IPCC report. "Computing platforms, such as those developed by SGI, are thus a vital part of efforts to understand and project climate change." SGI customers contributing to the latest IPCC assessment report span the globe. They include:

• From North America: National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, Columbia University, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Environment Canada.
• From South America: Universidade de Sao Paulo
• From Europe: Meteo France, Imperial College London, and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).
• From Asia: China Meteorological Administration, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
• From the Pacific Rim: New Zealand's University of Otago.

SGI solutions are helping these and other institutions develop more accurate weather forecasts and climate models. SGI solutions enable researchers to work with increasingly complex computer models and a rapidly expanding database of current and historical observations from around the world. Leading research institutions can more easily predict weather at local, regional and global levels. They also can manage operational data flows and archival requirements, as well as run larger and more complex environmental simulations. In a separate announcement today, SGI spotlighted how the company's compute, storage and visualization solutions are helping the world's leading research facilities achieve breakthroughs in meteorological and climate science, including studies of extreme earth responses, earth monitoring, and new sources of clean energy. "SGI is delighted to see a significant number of customers listed as contributors to the latest IPCC assessment report on climate change," said Dr. Eng Lim Goh, senior vice president and chief technology officer, SGI. "The important work of these scientists requires ever greater numbers of observations, higher resolution models, and more physics. These give rise to huge output files and consume massive compute and storage resources. It's for this reason that we've been evolving our systems architecture to be scalable enough for their research today, and well into the future." Energy-Efficient Systems Help Reduce Environmental Footprint For years, SGI has also focused on energy efficiency. In addition to maintaining its own strict product manufacturing guidelines, SGI is a member of The Green Grid, a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe. Key to the company's environmental efforts is its devotion to designing energy-efficient products. The award-winning SGI Altix server line has consistently ranked among the industry's most efficient server systems, and the new SGI Altix ICE continues this commitment with a breakthrough energy-smart design that can save organizations up to $44,000 in annual energy costs for a 10TFLOP (or two-rack) system. Cost savings aren't the only benefit: Compared to a typical server, a 10TFLOP SGI Altix ICE system can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 293 metric tons every year -- the environmental equivalent of pulling 53 passenger vehicles off the road. "SGI systems are used extensively to gain insight into Earth's climate. At the same time, they are enabling the design of wind turbines, fuel cells and, in the longer term, fusion power generators that can contribute to addressing climate change," added Goh. "By selecting SGI, these researchers are making breakthroughs in both related areas, and on some of the industry's most energy-efficient systems."