ORNL supercomputer projects BP spill to reach eastern seaboard, and beyond

[guruoo]

ORNL computer simulates BP spill's progression
Oil expected to reach Eastern seaboard, lab director says

* By Frank Munger
* Knoxville News Sentinel
* Posted July 14, 2010 at midnight




OAK RIDGE - Jaguar, the world's fastest computer, has been used to simulate the movement of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to better understand how ocean currents may transport the material in coming months.

"Jaguar was used to do some modeling of the transport of the oil out of the Gulf and it gets into this loop current and runs around Florida and up the eastern seaboard and heads out to sea once it gets past North Carolina," Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said Monday in an interview at the lab.

The Cray XT5 supercomputer is capable of more than 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

...

"There's a group at Los Alamos (National Laboratory in New Mexico) that specializes in modeling the ocean and also researchers at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Colorado," the ORNL director said. "So they've been using Jaguar to make those projections. They're not really forecasts. But what they do is give you a pretty good idea on the time scale of the next three to four months. You are going to start seeing oil up the Eastern seaboard. And, of course, it'll be somewhat dispersed and so forth and it won't be as concentrated an impact as you're having at Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, but it is going to happen nonetheless."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jul/14/computer-simulates-bp-spills-progression/

[backscatter712]

1. Jaguar can do 1.75 petaflops. It's the fastest supercomputer in the world.

These predictions shouldn't be laughed at.

[northzax]

3. speed means nothing

what matters is the data it has. and since the data on currents is remarkably incomplete, everything that comes out has to be taken with a grain of salt. it's a potentially frightening scenario, but there is too much chaos in the system for even Jaguar to model well.

[GeorgeGist]

5. No need to distort your point!

Computer speed means a lot; especially when the data becomes complete.

[northzax]

6. not really

just means it solves math problems faster. but if the rules it operates under aren't right, then that's just a faster way to get to the wrong answer.

[jberryhill]

4. My dog does about 10 petaflops every morning

From the floor to my bed, and then from my bed to under my desk, and then she flops behind the couch for a while before walking around and flopping onto the couch...

[ensho]

2. I'm not laughing - and I'm glad to have the Jaquar working on it

the more we know the long view the better to plan