University of Maine professor Phillip M. Dickens is leading a team working on Maine’s first scientific grid portal to perform climate change models and deliver real-time high-resolution visuals of output data for use by researchers, students, and educators in the state’s public school system. “Distilling complex global warming research down for students’ desktop computers requires a large, high-productivity computing [HPC] system that is powerful enough to create simulations of ice sheets, animations, and other visual information in real time–all while making the research results easy to interpret, whether the ‘student’ is a Ph.D. or a fifth grader,” writes Dickens. “More importantly, the scientific knowledge gleaned from large-scale climate models is directly related to the resolution of the models, and higher resolution models require more computing power.” Dickens notes that his team’s design of the portal required an HPC system with sufficient computing capacity to accommodate complex problems while also consuming a minimum of space and electrical power. Dickens writes that research into climate change demands a multidisciplinary strategy, and he stresses that the use of the new system reflects researchers’ adoption of an HPC grid model wherein virtual organizations can collaborate even when they are geographically scattered. The grid, to be launched this fall, will enable collaborating scientists to use as well as access data, while climate change researchers will be able to remotely feed their own data into existing climate change models through a future interface. “Going forward, the team plans to work closely with other scientists to parallelize their code so they can take advantage of the opportunities the grid provides, as well as significantly increase the models made available through the portal,” Dickens says.
For more information please visit: http://www.cpccci.com
Tags: Climate
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