Reliable and Accurate Weather and Climate Prediction: Why IBM
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Partners Optimizing Cabot Business Value Cabot Partners Group, Inc. 100 Woodcrest Lane, Danbury CT 06810, www.cabotpartners.com indirect costs accrued from increasing environmental damage anddisruption. damage environmental fromincreasing indirect costsaccrued Forinstance, ofdirectand thefullspectrum andcitizensface theprivatesector, oflife.Governments, activity andquality aswell the naturalenvironment to economic tocontribute theirability infrastructureand onhuman-made realimpactson events –willhave temperature stormsandextreme andmorefrequent sea levelstostronger fromrising climaticchanges– Likewise, anticipated onvacations. andwheretogo what towearandwhen forecaststodecide householdsuseweather load.Even tobalance demandsgeographically estimates peak sector energy events.Andthe avoid severeweather routingdecisionsto industry makes The transportation frostdamages. andmitigate whentoplant,irrigate, todetermine usestheseforecasts The agriculturalsector estimates from hurricane Katrina range upward of $200 billion, or over 1% of US gross domestic product domestic 1%ofUSgross orover of$200billion, rangeupward Katrina fromhurricane estimates Center forIntegrative EnvironmentalResearch(CIER) attheUniversityofMaryland, October2007. seasonal, and climatic predictions by permitting increased resolutions and more complex models. Globally, complexmodels. andmore increasedresolutions predictionsbypermitting seasonal, andclimatic ocean, lengthofweather, accuracy,and thereliability, toadvance beenusedextensively HPC solutionshave marketplace. modeling andclimate totheweatherforecasting portfolio delivers thelastdecade,IBM Over HPC IBM’s businessvalue thesubstantial highlights thisarticle researchandinterviews, Through in-depth intothefuture. forecasting farther andextendweather the forecastuncertainty helpdefine forecasts worldwide.Ensemble forecasts fornations tocreate inscale,arerun globalandregional forecastmodels,both Typically, many supercomputers. mostpowerfulresilient the use ofthe reliable requires theresultsusefuland tomake resolution fineenough ona necessarytodothis thecomplexcalculations datasetsandperforming thehuge the future.Manipulating into andmodelclimate topredicttheweather system andtheearth modelsoftheatmosphere mathematical input intosophisticated aretypicallyusedas conditions models.Currentweather ocean, andclimate wide varietyofweather, a theessential toolpowering become whichhave from theuseofsupercomputers greatly withsuchconfidence benefit Predictions made credibilitytoo. terms ofdamaged in ineconomicterms,but costly evacuation isnotonly 4 3 2 1 procedures. effectiveevacuation facilitating accurately forewarned, canbemore population impact, andthecivilian andwater forthewind properties canbeprepared be betterdeployed, resourcescan service personneland emergency hurricanes, and landfallofindividual the intensity accuratepredictionsof plans. Withmore evacuation asbetteroptimize and savelives,aswell damagetobuildings tominimize months inadvance prepare agenciescanbetter hurricane season,public intense noticeofamore With alongeradvance routinelyuseweather Many economicsectors Introduction – BenefitsofWeatherandClimatePredictionPoweredbyIBMHPCSolutions Investments inRusohydrometServices”, ReportpreparedforNOAAandWorldBank,May, 2004. mailto:[email protected] September, 2009 Srini Chari,Ph.D., MBA Sponsored by IBM Performance Computing(HPC)SolutionshaveanOverwhelmingLead Reliable andAccurateWeatherClimatePrediction:WhyIBM DavidBlaskovich, IBM,“PersonalCommunications”, 2009. “FinancialRisksofClimateChange”, SummaryReport,AssociationofBritishInsurers,June,2005. of for LaurieL.Houston,RichardM. Adams, andRodneyF.Weiher,“TheEconomicBenefits Weather Forecasts:Implications Matthias Ruth, Dana Coelho, and Daria Karetnikov, “The US Economic Impacts ofClimateChangeand Matthias Ruth,DanaCoelho,and DariaKaretnikov,“TheUSEconomicImpacts the CostsofInaction”, 4 Conversely, an ill-advised ormisdirected Conversely,anill-advised 1 andclimatepredictions 2 to make critical business decisions. criticalbusinessdecisions. tomake ® Resilient High the economic cost the economic 3 . 1 expected to remain flat expected toremain applicationsis and climate spendforweather segments,supercomputer other HPC supercomputers in on spendingreductions significant capability.Despite and datamanagement increases incomputational ordersofmagnitude todeliver exascalesystems andeven petascale next-generation All thiswouldrequire life, safety, and efficiency from reliable and accurate weather and climate prediction. andclimate reliableandaccurateweather from life, safety,andefficiency indaily reapsthebenefits andsocietywhich is theeconomy figure),it inthefollowing the end(asdepicted In forbetterpredictions. fuelthedrive those scientistswho productivity of improvethe use tosignificantly resilience,andease-of- mustpossessthereliability, family ofproducts andrelated powerful supercomputers these asperformance, Equallyasimportant ofabout60%. marketleadership itscurrent positioned toextend 6 5 weathertechnology upgrade andmodernize to approved$620million Sciencesrecently theMinistryofEarth inIndia, forecasting. Forexample, forweather intechnology spending increase tosignificantly centersareexpected geographies, weather Eveninemerging composition. ofatmospheric analysesandforecasts anddeliver prediction capabilities climate increase tosignificantly arealsoexpected events.Thesecenters adverseweather warnings ofsevere early focusonimproving models,and accuratecomputational rangeforecaststhroughmore medium-to-long tofurtherimprove andcapabilities their products toenhance ofthesecentersexpect five years,many Inthenext their stakeholders. weatherforecaststo accurateandup-to-date themost architecture todeliver primarilybasedonthePower HPCsystems havereliedonIBM weathercenters some ofthelargest IT Budgets:Recovery in2010 http://www.hpcuserforum.com/presentations/April2009Roanoke/EarlandJieIDCMarketUpdateslides4.19.2009.ppt#1109,9,The New SonyaMisquittaandGeetaAnand, “IndiaHopesforRainandanAccurateForecast”,theWallStreet Journal,August13,2009. Warnings & Alert & Warnings Co Assessments - Threats ordinations Forecasts Guidance Watches Outlook Figure 1:Business ValueofForecast Products Spanning Weather and ClimateModeling Minutes Forecast Lead Time 6 for theshort-term IBMiswell Webelieve, downturn. duringthecurrenteconomic Hours Short TermWeather Forecast Decadal Forecasts Med. RangetoSeasonalWeather Forecast Climate Prediction Protection of Life and Property Days Flood Mitigation& Navigation 1 Week Space Operation Hurricane Tracking Dispersion Models forDept. ofHomelandSecurity Rapid Update CycleforAviation European Forecast North American Forecast Short 5 crucial to predict rainfall during the monsoon season. duringthe crucialtopredictrainfall Transportation 2 Week - Range Ensemble Forecast Fire Weather Source: NOAA, ECMWF, and IBMinformation (Dave Blaskovich) Months Hydropower Benefits Global WeatherForecast Systems Ensemble ForecastSystems Agriculture Seasons Reservoir Control Recreation Years Climate Prediction Systems Ecosystem Decades Energy Health Centuries Commerce State/Local Planning Uncertainty Forecast Environment 2 How is Weather and Climate Predicted? - Establishing the Need for Supercomputers. Short Range Weather Forecasting (Hours to Days) is the best place to start because the forecasts are more familiar and the highly-successful methodology is similar to medium range weather forecasting and climate prediction in many ways. The process of short range weather forecasting is at the core of almost every weather/climate model and includes several steps to analyze and refine the raw weather observations, to make the numerical predictions, to generate useable forecast products, and to then distribute those forecasts to users across the nation.7Within this operational production process, several steps take place each with a somewhat different computational role: Data collection, Data assimilation and analysis, Numerical weather prediction, and Model output post processing. Data Assimilation Numerical Weather Model Output Data Collection and Analysis Prediction Post Processing Data collection: Each day, millions of observations of the atmosphere and oceans are made around the world with weather balloon, ships, ground stations, radars, and airplanes. Included are measurements of temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, and several other parameters. In the near future, more capable weather-observing satellites will significantly increase the quantity of observations, especially over the open oceans in areas where few ships travel. Data assimilation and analysis: Because the weather observations are scattered irregularly over the surface of the planet, based on location of the observing platform, highly sophisticated numerical analysis programs interpolate the values of the observations to grid points on a three dimensional mesh data structure placed over the globe by the analysis program. In addition, the analysis program melds these data with a “first guess” of the current weather picture taken from a forecast made by the previous run of the operational forecast suite. These data sets on grids constitute the snapshot of the current state of the atmosphere. Numerical weather prediction (NWP) models then advance that 3-D snapshot forward in time. These models use numerical algorithms to describe the behavior of the atmosphere and oceans as fluids, using mathematical formulas based on the physics of radiation, momentum, energy, heat, and the rotation of