MOVIES

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., SGI announced that Columbia University's International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction is using two 32-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 3400 high-performance computing systems to run computationally intensive climate forecasting models. These SGI(R) servers are helping IRI to accurately predict seasonal climate changes several months in advance and to make this information available to those affected by climate fluctuations, particularly weather phenomena such as El Nino that cause devastating impacts on humans and the environment. El Nino is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific that involves changes in sea surface temperatures and can have important consequences for weather around the globe, including increased rainfall that has caused destructive flooding. Using current sea surface temperatures in the tropical ocean basins and model predictions of how the oceans will likely evolve during the next several months, IRI relies on numerical models of the atmosphere running on SGI systems to predict mean seasonal patterns of temperature and rainfall. By combining predictions from several different computer models, IRI provides the probability of above-normal, normal or below-normal precipitation or temperature and the differences between the predictions. "As the institute's name implies, our science depends critically on Earth observations," said Stephen Zebiak, director of modeling and prediction, IRI. "We run a range of global and regional weather modeling applications, using data received from sensors around the world, that is processed on our SGI Origin computers. These computers are well-suited for this kind of compute-intensive activity involving the use of coupled general circulation, simplified dynamical and statistical models." Based on these models, El Nino conditions are expected to continue through February and then weaken or dissipate between March and June. Neutral conditions are most likely from July to the end of 2003. Over the next two months, the associated precipitation and temperature effects are expected to be generally weaker than those associated with the 1997-98 El Nino, but still may be (and already have been) substantial in some areas. SGI high-performance computing servers and supercomputers, based on the unique SGI(R) NUMAflex(TM) shared-memory system architecture, provide technical professionals with superior performance and scalability in a design that is easy to deploy, program and manage. SGI servers and supercomputers combine capability and deployability for a highly productive computing environment that enables users to do more. "The institute's computing resources should enable our researchers to achieve maximum productivity irrespective of job category, which is what the SGI Origin servers allow us to achieve," said Leo Ostwald, manager of computing systems, IRI. "The NUMAflex architecture eases the burden of systems administration, simplifies software development for complex numerical codes and provides unprecedented performance for a variety of applications. The traditional strengths of SGI systems-robust, modular, scalable, high-performance computation-will continue to serve IRI well into the future."