But what if a hurricane season of that magnitude were to occur in 50 or 75 years, when experts predict water temperatures are likely to be warmer, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere higher, and coastal water levels higher? How will climate change affect the severity of tropical storms?

That’s the big question that Gary Lackmann and his research team are determined to answer, with help from the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). Lackmann, an associate professor in the department of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, is harnessing the power of Ocracoke, RENCI’s IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer to run detailed simulations of real and theoretical tropical storm models in an effort to understand what climate change could mean for Atlantic coast communities from New England to Central America.

The three-year project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Global Change Research Program, involves co-principal investigators Fred Semazzi, Anantha Aiyyer, and Lian Xie, all with NC State’s marine, earth and atmospheric sciences department.

Lackmann’s team has a two-fold approach to studying climate change. In one set of storm simulations conducted on Ocracoke, graduate student Kevin Hill created what is known as “idealized” storm simulations that allow hurricanes to reach their maximum strength. The models essentially hold all variables stable to allow a storm to grow to its maximum potential intensity, or MPI.  One run modeled current conditions, and the simulated storm approached the strength of some observed monster storms, such as Katrina and Wilma in 2005.  Hill then compared this idealized storm to simulations for the future using projections of temperature, CO2 levels, and other conditions for the late 21st century based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations-sponsored group that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

“What we are looking to see in these simulations is where a storm bottoms out,” explained Lackmann. “In a given environment, we want to see how intense a storm can get–that’s the MPI. Specifically, we want to know how future conditions could impact the intensity of storms. This should give us ideas on where to focus further research.”

From 2005 to 2080
In addition to the idealized models, Megan Gentry, a doctoral student and member of the research team, is running massive simulations of tropical storms from the 2005 hurricane season, which included seven major hurricanes and four Category 5 hurricanes, and from other active and inactive seasons. Again using data from the IPCC, Gentry plans to run the models using future environmental conditions as parameters. The results will project what Katrina, Rita, and other powerful storms might look like if they hit in 2075 or 2080, when atmospheric CO2 levels are expected to peak.

“We are adjusting the conditions in our models based on the environmental changes that we expect,” said Lackmann. “It’s exciting because these are not theoretical storms–they really happened and we should be able to see how different they might have been under  future conditions.”

Simulating massive storms in all their complexity requires much more computing power than is available in the typical campus lab, so Lackmann turned to RENCI and its computing resources. Using Ocracoke in late 2007 and early 2008, the researchers generated and analyzed enormous amounts of data using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, a mesocale numerical weather prediction system. Each model run took about two days to complete and generated about 100 gigabytes of data.

So far the team has carried out a dozen model runs in about 24 days using 1,024 processors on Ocracoke. Although the models had been run before on smaller computers, those models provided much less detail about the storms. The new models provide higher resolution–grid data points at every 2 or 4 kilometers depending on the run, compared to a grid resolution of 9 kilometers when run on less powerful computers.

“We couldn’t do this work without a very powerful computer,” said Lackmann. “The higher resolution allows us to capture the full intensity of these storms. It also helps us assess whether the model is accurate or if you are seeing detail that is simply being generated by certain components of the model.”

The perfect vantage point
The idealized models have been completed, and the research team is now studying the results carefully to see what they can learn about the future MPI of tropical storms. Although it is far too early to draw any conclusions, the models suggest that while warmer temperatures will increase the intensity of storms, warming in the upper atmosphere could reduce that intensity from what would be expected if only surface temperature was to increase.

The future projection model runs are just starting and should continue into the spring and summer of 2008. Lackmann also is working with visualization specialists at RENCI’s NC State engagement center to develop dynamic, high-resolution images and animations from the data. Working with visualization experts has been an added bonus of working with RENCI and could lead to better, more understandable, research results, according to Lackmann.

“With high-resolution animations, sometimes you see things that you wouldn’t have noticed just looking at still images,” he said. “You can follow a particular parcel of air, or you can watch the animation of different parameters to better understand the structural evolution of the system. The high-resolution simulations are close to reality, and allow the viewer the perfect vantage point. Obviously, it’s not feasible to stand in the middle of a real hurricane and observe like this!”

CHAPEL HILL, NC–RENCI’S IBM Blue Gene®/L computing system will double its size and power in February with the addition of another 1,024 compute nodes. The upgraded system, named Ocracoke after the oldest active lighthouse in North Carolina, will consist of 2,048 compute nodes and will have a peak performance of 11.4 teraflops, meaning it will be capable of more than 11 trillion calculations per second.

Ocracoke runs the Linux operating system, and each node consists of two 700 MHz PowerPC 440 processors with 1 gigabyte (GB) of memory. The system also includes 11 terabytes of disk storage.

One of the first jobs for the new and improved Ocracoke will be running daily models of RENCI’s HydroMet, a comprehensive forecasting system that combines atmospheric, hydrological and coastal storm surge data. Ocracoke will compute HydroMet models with nine times the resolution of the National Weather Service’s production models. The high resolution models will be used to produce more accurate flood and landslide predictions in North Carolina.

“Resources of this scale make breakthrough discoveries possible,” said RENCI Director Dan Reed. “Ocracoke is part of our ongoing effort to bring world-class computing resources to North Carolina, in support of statewide problems. We hope it becomes the foundation of a comprehensive set of tools provided by RENCI that will help North Carolina become a powerhouse of research and competitiveness.”

The additional nodes will make Ocracoke the most powerful supercomputer in North Carolina and among the top 60 machines in the world, based on the current Top 500 supercomputers list.

RENCI…Catalyst for Innovation
The Renaissance Computing Institute brings together computer and discipline scientists, artists, humanists, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, state leaders and educators for collaborations designed to reshape science, the economy, the state of North Carolina and the world. RENCI leverages its expertise and resources in leading edge computing, networking and data technologies to ignite innovation and find solutions to previously intractable problems. Founded in 2004 as a major collaborative venture of Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the state of North Carolina, RENCI is a statewide virtual organization.  For more, seewww.renci.org.

CHAPEL HILL, October 31, 2007—Integrated models for disaster planning and management, virtual environments for research and decision support, and computing and visualization to reveal the functions of proteins and gene mutations linked to cancer are among the presentations that will be featured in the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) booth at SC07 in Reno.

The SC07 exhibition will be held at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center as part of the SC07 conference, beginning Monday night, Nov. 12, through Thursday, Nov. 15. The RENCI booth is #3215.

In its second appearance at an SC conference, RENCI will highlight its work over the last year with federal and North Carolina-based agencies to use advanced technologies to improve disaster planning and response. A presentation on the Institute’s FEMA-funded effort to create new high-resolution floodplain maps for coastal North Carolina will kick off the RENCI exhibit at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12. The presentation will cover the background and approach to this work, which is still in progress and is expected to use more than 500,000 compute hours on RENCI’s Blue Gene/L supercomputer, Ocracoke. It will include visualizations on a high-resolution tiled display wall showing a hypothetical tropical storm slamming into North Carolina’s Cape Fear River.

RENCI also will demonstrate its collaborative workspace for emergency managers, called NC-FIRST (10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13), and its use of the Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System (RHESSys) to examine drought conditions in the southeastern U.S. (11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14).

In addition, the RENCI will booth will highlight two projects designed to help researchers understand the complex interactions of proteins and genes and their relationship to human diseases. A demonstration with researchers from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) will present MotifNetwork, a user-friendly environment for facilitating analysis of protein domains, or motifs. These subsequences of amino acids contained within proteins define their activity and mode of regulation and offer another focus of analysis for studies of gene function, gene interaction and gene and organism evolution. Another presentation will highlight 3D visualizations created to help scientists study protein-protein interaction networks triggered by exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The goal of the work, which is funded by NCSA, is to better understand the changes in DNA caused by exposure to sunlight that trigger the development of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.

“The presentations in the RENCI booth illustrate that this conference has evolved well beyond showcasing the latest powerful hardware,” said RENCI Director Dan Reed. “High performance computing, networking, visualization and collaboration technologies are now essential tools used by scientists and by government decision makers. Our field is affecting broad areas of the human experience, including how we diagnose and treat diseases and how we respond to natural disasters. The RENCI booth will highlight some of these broad impacts.”

Other features of the RENCI booth will include:

• An overview of RENCI research into novel uses of the 3D Internet.  In a demonstration conducted live from the RENCI Second Life Island, RENCI researchers will provide a tour of the island and the prototype virtual disaster command center it has developed there. The command center features real-time 3D maps, the ability to interact with avatars from a wide range of government agencies, and views of real-time data from sensors, satellites, the National Weather Service, and other sources. The demonstration, called Exploring the Emerging 3D Internet: Virtual Environments for Social Computing and Situational Awareness, takes place at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13. Those who miss the demonstration will have the chance to explore RENCI’s Second Life island and view a virtual poster session using guest logins and avatars that will be available in one of the booth kiosks.

• A variety of quality of service issues related to large-scale grid computing will be examined in several presentations. At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, RENCI will demonstrate Teresa, a runtime qualitative performance analysis framework, and its use in providing performance validation and diagnosis for a workflow of the Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD) program. At 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, RENCI will demonstrate its fault tolerance and recovery system and its research to integrate the system with the Virtual Grid Application Development Software (VGrADS) stack.

• Booth visitors will have the chance to use a Gigapixel Image Viewer to manipulate super high-resolution images with a total pixel density of 1.2 gigapixels. Many of the images are 360-degree panoramas consisting of about 150 images digitally stitched together. With a wireless mouse, users will be able to pan, and zoom in and out on the images without any loss of resolution. RENCI is exploring use of this technology in fields as varied as medical diagnostics and disaster planning. The Gigapixel Viewer will be introduced at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12. SC07 participants will be able to explore the gigapixel imagery on their own in one of the booth kiosks throughout the exhibition.

The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), at the request of the state of North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) , is modernizing the floodplain maps by computing a series of worst-case scenario flood models for coastal North Carolina using Ocracoke, RENCI’s IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Over 500,000 Ocracoke computing hours will be needed to complete the research. Computing of the models began in July and should be completed in November.

“RENCI is currently testing the new high-resolution floodplain models with over 1,000 theoretical storms, trying to capture information about their intensity, speed and direction,” said Ken Galluppi, senior researcher and meteorologist who heads RENCI’s disaster research efforts. “In collaboration with experts from the private sector, the Army Corp of Engineers, the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and the state Floodplain Mapping Program, our team will be able to determine the probability of a storm hitting North Carolina and how much storm surge there could be along the coast.”

A modeling project of this magnitude could have been very costly for the state if private companies were contracted, according to Galluppi, but RENCI was able to incorporate the work into its larger disaster research efforts, which include developing high resolution atmospheric, hydrological and storm surge models.

The new floodplain models will replace outdated, lower resolution models that do not account for extensive coastal elevation and land use datasets developed over the last seven years.  Better representation of the physical world will also account for the rapid growth over the last 15 years of housing, commercial and tourist developments. The new models will provide federal and state emergency response agencies with a more accurate, reliable and available source of floodplain information. For homeowners, the new models will reveal much information about their year-to-year flood risks, including the likelihood of experiencing a 100-year, or base, flood in any given year. The 100-year flood is a regulatory standard used by federal agencies and most states to administer floodplain management programs. The 100-year flood is also used by the National Flood Insurance Program as the basis for insurance requirements nationwide.

“It is our hope that every county and municipality in North Carolina will adopt the maps resulting from this modeling into their ordinance,” said John Dorman, chief of the Floodplain Mapping Program for the state of North Carolina. “The new floodplain models will provide more meaningful and accurate information, including what a homeowner’s risk is from year to year. It is a great value to the state of North Caroling to utilize RENCI and its resources. RENCI technology will help us educate the public about their flood risks and ensure that North Carolina is safer and better prepared for the next storm surge.” 

The floodplain models will be put to use in computing theoretical storms in October. Eventually the resulting maps will aid in developing emergency response plans and in determining where storm surges will take place and who will be at risk. In addition to FEMA workers and state emergency managers, the maps will be used by surveyors, insurance companies, realtors, mortgage companies and municipal and county planning offices. RENCI will also provide the same models to the National Weather Service to help forecast storms and floods in North Carolina.

The public can learn more about the floodplain mapping program at www.ncfloodmaps.com.

CHAPEL HILL, NC—New benchmarking results on Topsail, the Renaissance Computing Institute’s (RENCI) Dell cluster, showed a maximum performance of 28.77 teraflops—nearly 30 trillion calculations per second—more than quadruple the machine’s previous maximum performance.

The results, obtained using the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, would make Topsail the 16th most powerful computer in the world and the ninth most powerful in the U.S., based on the most recent Top 500supercomputers list, which was released last November. Each node in Topsail’s 520-node cluster consists of dual quad-core Intel Clovertown 2.33 gigahertz processors with 12 gigabytes (GB) of memory and Cisco Infiniband interconnect. The system runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (2.6.9-42 kernel).

The cluster’s nodes were upgraded recently from dual-processor nodes with 4 GB of memory per node. Performance on Topsail before the upgrade was 6.252 teraflops.

“This upgrade provides North Carolina the kind of high performance computing resources needed to support world-class research and discovery,” said RENCI Director Dan Reed. “These numbers show that the upgrade had the expected benefits and that North Carolina now has a system capable of supporting the most computationally intensive work in the biosciences, medicine, environmental science and other domains. A new generation of discoveries will depend on our ability to maintain and continually deploy systems of this and larger caliber.”

Topsail joins Ocracoke, RENCI’s IBM Blue Gene/L system with a peak performance of 11.4 teraflops, as the institute’s primary high-end computing resources. Ocracoke serves statewide needs such as disaster response and weather forecasting. Topsail is the premier general purpose computing resource for researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill and is an important part of the IT infrastructure necessary to bring major federally funded research projects to the campus, according to Reed. Last fall, Chancellor James Moeser set the goal of securing $1 billion in external funding for the UNC campus by 2015. RENCI’s role in reaching that goal will be to provide the computing, data, storage, and other technology resources needed to support large-scale research efforts.

Ocracoke, with 1,024 dual processor compute nodes, 1 gigabyte of memory per node and a peak performance of 5.7 teraflops, or trillions of calculations per second, was ranked 104th on the list. The system was installed in April and will be used for creating complex models and simulations and for analyzing and managing massive data sets.

In additon, Topsail, the Dell research computing cluster operated by Information Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was ranked 74th on the Top 500 list. The Topsail cluster’s computational capability of 6.252 teraflops is greater than the sum of the computational capabilities of all other Information Technology Services’ research computing systems.

The Top500 project, which began in 1993, tracks and detects trends in high-performance computing.  Twice a year in June and November, a list of the world’s most powerful computers is compiled and released.

“This caliber of computing resources is essential to make breakthrough research possible and to build Carolina’s reputation as a research powerhouse in both academia and industry.” said Dan Reed, director of RENCI and vice chancellor for information technology at UNC-Chapel Hill.  “With our entry onto the Top 500 list, we are showing our commitment to providing a world-class research environment.”

“Topsail has taken us to the next level of high performance computing,” added Ruth Marinshaw, UNC-Chapel Hill’s acting assistant vice chancellor for research computing.  “It allows researchers to solve ‘big science’ problems that require very large amounts of computing capability.”

The Top500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Germany; Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee. The best performance on the Linpack benchmark is used as a performance measure for ranking the computer systems.  To view the list, visit www.top500.org