UK Met Office buys top of the range NEC supercomputer

The initial phase of this contract consists of 30 NEC SX-6 nodes, a total of 240 vector parallel processors (approx. 2 Teraflop/s) to be running at the Met Office's new HQ site in Exeter, by March 2004. Each SX-6 processor has peak vector performance of 8 Gigaflop/s, which is the fastest technical processor available. The high throughput performance of the SX-6 Series is achieved by employing ultra-high-speed Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and state-of-the-art LSI technology. Large memory and high data transfer rates between memories and CPUs are very important for obtaining high-sustained performance for large-scale computations. This first phase will deliver approximately six times the combined power of the Met Office's two current Cray T3E supercomputers.

A year later and part of this contract, more nodes will be added, taking the total power available to 12.5 times the current T3E systems. The Met Office will be getting the most powerful NEC system outside Japan. A top of the range supercomputing facility, as befits a top quality national weather centre.

Alan Dickinson, Director of Numerical Weather Prediction for the Met Office, said: "The upgrade will allow us to use higher resolution models with improved computational and physical processing, enabling us to get more accurate forecasts of both near, current weather and longer-term climate trends."

For the connoisseurs, the UK Met Office, run a Global weather model with a 60Km grid and a local UK model on a 12Km grid, at present. The new NEC system will allow them to run the Global model using a 40Km grid and the local one at 3Km. The latter will enable the Met Office to deliver much needed improved forecasts for severe weather conditions, such as flooding, which are causing enormous economic damage in the UK in recent years, as they become more frequent due to Global warming.

In addition to weather forecasts benefiting from the extra power, climate models run on the NEC supercomputer will provide improved predictions of high impact climate changes, building on data available from a new generation of satellites. These new satellites will have improved surface soundings and deliver a hundredfold more data, which need to be processed as part of the numerical model. Climate change predictions are expected to become even more authoritative through increases in resolution, representation of new processes and the use of ensemble predictions to provide risk assessments.

Incidentally, climate studies show that the rise in air temperature from climate change is shifting rainfall patterns, causing droughts in some continental regions (Southern Africa countries presently) and making other regions wetter. According to a report in Science, last week, the increase in rainfall could result in severe flooding and soil erosion, which could harm over two billion people. The human misery from drought is with us today as images shown on our television screens testify.

Alan Dickinson continued: "This deal gives a clear statement about the Met Office's commitment to remain the acknowledged world leader in both numerical weather prediction and prediction of climate change over the coming years, and should ensure that our new facilities at Exeter remain at the cutting edge."

This agreement also demonstrates the long-term confidence of the UK Met Office in NEC's ability to deliver groundbreaking computing solutions. Alan Dickinson then said: "For phase one, I expect between half and one Teraflop/s to be delivered routinely to our large-scale applications and this would make it possible to get more accurate forecasts by running many timely ensembles."

Tadashi Watanabe, Vice President of NEC Solutions, added: "We are delighted to be providing the Met Office with the best supercomputer solution possible, further enhancing its outstanding predictor capabilities. With close to 100 units of this new series of supercomputers sold in the last nine months, this is a landmark deal for NEC."

The Met Office is also expanding its international operations and is extending co-operation and forging partnerships within the international "weather" communities. For more information visit the met office home page at http://www.metoffice.com.