Collaborative Effort Results in New U.S. Records for Speed, Scale, Detail and Parallelism

A team of researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), SDSC, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and IBM Watson Research Center set U.S. records for size, performance, and fidelity of computer weather simulations, modeling the kind of “virtual weather” that society depends on for accurate weather forecasts. For the highly detailed weather simulations, the researchers used the sophisticated Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, widely used for continuous weather forecasting by government, military, and commercial forecasters as well as for weather and climate research in hundreds of universities and institutions worldwide. The team’s efforts, named as a finalist for the Gordon Bell Prize, opened the way for simulations of greatly enhanced resolution and size, serving as a key benchmark for improving both operational forecasts and basic understanding of weather and climate prediction.