"The trouble with weather forecasting
is that it’s right too often for us
to ignore it
and wrong too often for us
to rely on it.”
-Patrick L. Young
This map from Weather.com shows winds across the United States.
Each one of these arrows requires large amounts of processing power to produce
Each arrow can be produced independently of the others
This is a computer
It can do
billions of calculations
per second...
But it can only do one thing at a time!
It would take a single computer DAYS to create this map
We could make it faster by reducing the resolution...
...but that makes the forecast less accurate
How can we
quickly and accurately
forecast the weather
using today's technology?
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We can use
High Performance Computing
to spread the calculations
across many computers
Today, you'll see first-hand how it works!
High Performance Computing
has many uses...
...and simulating the entire cosmos!
The
National Center for Atmospheric Research
operates several
High Performance Computing systems
Including a new system in Wyoming
with over 1.5 PETAFLOPS
(quadrillion calculations / sec)
of computing power!
