University of Hawaii to use new IBM supercomputer for meteorological research

Wind velocity data acquired from weather balloons and aircraft-borne labs will be analysed to develop a greater understanding of the forces that drive hurricanes. This will enhance meteorologists' ability to predict the storms.

Scientists will investigate the interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere believed to cause long-term climate variations. The research is expected to lead to a more accurate method for predicting changes in the world's climate, which will benefit numerous industrial sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation.

Meteorological data will be processed through state-of-the-art computer models to produce weather forecasts for each of Hawaii's counties.

In addition, scientists will rely on the supercomputer for a number of vital research projects in the areas of physics and chemistry. Educational programmes in the university's Department of Information and Computer Sciences will also be developed to train graduate students in computational science, which involves using high-performance computers for simulation in scientific research projects.

The synergy between UH, MHPCC, and IBM will provide the resources needed to establish UH as a leader in research computing. MHPCC, an expert in production-level computing on the SP supercomputer, is acting as an advisor to UH on a broad range of technical topics and will install and prepare the supercomputer for UH. In addition, MHPCC and IBM will assist UH researchers in using the new research tool.

Located in the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at the university's Pacific Ocean Science and Technology Building, Blue Hawaii is powered by 32 IBM POWER2 microprocessors, 16 gigabytes of memory and 493 gigabytes of IBM disk storage. The machine substantially augments the supercomputing power that is based in the state of Hawaii, already home to MHPCC.

Together, Blue Hawaii and MHPCC form a powerful technology foundation for the burgeoning scientific research initiatives located in Hawaii. In the past five years, government research grants awarded to Hawaii scientists have increased by 34 percent to $103 million, according to the UH office of research services.

The Blue Hawaii system joins a long roster of IBM SP supercomputers around the world. According to the TOP500 Supercomputer List, IBM SPs now account for 144 of the world's 500 most powerful high performance computers, more than any other machine. The list is published twice a year by supercomputing experts Jack Dongarra from the University of Tennessee and Erich Strohmaier and Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim (Germany).

IBM SP supercomputers are used to solve the most complex scientific and business problems. With the IBM SP, scientists can model the effects of the forces exerted by galaxies; corporations can perform complex calculations on massive amounts of data in order to support business decisions; petroleum exploration companies can rapidly process seismic data to determine where they should drill; and company executives seeking to meet Internet demand can enable complex Web-based transactions.