From the Atomic City Underground Blog of knoxvillenews.com comes word that a big kahuna of komputing is about to go online.
The Cray XK6 supercomputer is a trifecta of scalar, network and many-core innovation. It combines Cray’s proven Gemini interconnect, AMD’s leading multi-core scalar processors and NVIDIA’s powerful many-core GPU processors to create a true, productive hybrid supercomputer. Here’s the factory photo before customization:
Reporter Frank Munger writes:
Cray recently delivered the final 26 cabinets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Gaea climate research supercomputer, which is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The newly arrived cabinets are loaded with the new AMD 16-core Interlagos processors. According to Jeff Nichols, an associate lab director at ORNL who heads the computational science directorate, the Gaea system is still in two pieces. The first piece is the original 14-cabinet system with a peak capability of 260 teraflops, Nichols said. The second piece is the new 26-cabinet system with a capability of 720 teraflops, he said.
After the first piece is upgraded in the spring and the two pieces are integrated into one system, Gaea will become a 1.1 petaflops supercomputer, ORNL’s computing chief (who returned from a visit to China last week, where he spoke at a conference) said.
Here’s what it looks like at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, note the Earthy graphics:
While that door panel artwork was well received, word has it though, that the artwork was changed to be more representative of the i/o and stage by stage processing that takes place in this new system. Here’s the upgraded artwork and a brief description of what each processing cabinet does:
Below is the guide from left to right: Cabinet number, processing description
1. Input stage: takes data and bags, boxes, and bins it for distribution
2. Mannomatic stage: chooses which data to use, discards inappropriate data, adds proxy data where none exists, splices on new data to data that was truncated in stage 1.
3. Kevinator stage: approves processed data from stage 2, declares it “robust” using a special stamping system.
4. Hansenizer stage: Fits approved data from stage 3 to three model scenarios to match a “best fit”, applies additional corrections to elevate data for use by stage 5.
5. Gavinotron stage: Chooses data from the Giga Hansenized Climate Numbers (GHCN) to combine with Hansenized three scenario data, extrapolates data from 70°N to 90°N to fill the Gaea Global Model.
6. Humbertian Harmonizer Stage: Using bellows, and a random walk, data is wheezed out to stage 7.
7. Karl Konfabulator Stage: Assigns value to the data to report to Congress, ensuring that the data will be more valuable next year. Monitors power use, sends bills out to taxpayers.
8. Peterson Percolator Stage: Collates the data into inaccessible data furrows buried deep underground in Asheville North Carolina where the “secret sauce” is applied before percolating the data back to the surface.
9. Wigley Wombulator Stage: The data is shipped from Asheville to NCAR in Boulder via a secure optical link where the gatekeeper switch of the wombulator decides how much of it to pass onto CRU via the insecure POTS circuit from Boulder to Norwich. Only data with signed non disclosure agreements is passed on.
10. JonesiFOIAler Stage: Data received from the Wigely Wombulator is then hidden, and signed non disclosure agreements for the data are sent to the top of the paper pile in Jones office to be located by Sherpas mounting the paper summit hired by OSU’s Lonnie Thompson at some future date.
11. Briffabrowser stage: Here, the data is examined, and error flags are sent back up the processing line to all other processing stages using email. The other stages reply that the error flags don’t matter, and consensus is reached, allowing the data to be passed on to stage 12 after the emails are made public.
12. MUIRer (Make Up Independent Rationalizations) Russelizer Stage : Data and emails flagging questionable data are noted, given a brief talking to, and then passed on with no questions asked along with a “CERTIFIED A-OK” letter of endorsement.
13. Tiljander Inverter Stage: As a quality control check, Portions of the A-OK Data is inverted by the upside down Mannomatic, looked at in a mirror, then declared still usable.
14. Serializer Stage: The Final A-OK upside down Data is sent to the IPCC, where it is then returned by Indian handmaidens to the potboiling center at Almora, where it is washed repeatedly in hot water.
15. The Osterizer Stage: The IPCC Almora hot water washed data is then blended repeatedly until it reaches a fine homogenized puree.
16. The RealClimatizer Stage: Here the data undergoes public examination under intense scrutiny of thousands of like minded individuals identical processors. Tiny flecks of data that don’t consitute a pure product that may remain are picked off and routed into the borehole disposer.
17: The Cloudifier Stage: Data patterns are compared to an online satellite photo database of clouds to see if there might be any correlation. Any matches are sent back to stage 16 for disposal in the borehole.
18. The SOL Stage: Effects of sunlight on the data are removed.
19. The data is run through the final AlGoreithm, the CLOud and Weather Neutralizer (CLOWN) to ensure the final data has no remaining “weather not climate” residuals, given a happy demeanor and sent on to the final stage.
20. Output Stage: This cabinet, identical to the Input Stage 1, ejects the data in a composted form, suitable for academic consumption.
More information:
Gaea is NOAA’s prime supercomputing resource, and it will become the third petascale machine housed at ORNL. Jaguar, soon to be morphed into Titan, and Kraken, a National Science Foundation machine, are the others.
Cray XK6 Brochure (PDF)
The darndest thing just hit me.
NOAA has asked of Gaea, what will happen if we keep producing CO2? And Gaea has said unto NOAA that a terrible future awaits, for the fires of h*ll have been unleashed, storms of unprecedented fury will be visited upon the face of the earth, the moutains themselves will shed their ice and snow in rivers of tears that will flow as mighty torrents to the sea, and the furious heat will cause the oceans to boil, casting their moisture into the sky from whence it will return as unrelenting torrential rain. The sun will be blotted out, the land will be flooded, and life as we know it shall end.
The question being, having been warned by Gaea, will NOAA build an Ark?
First of all a Merry Christmas to Anthony and the very funny contributers to this thread. Those responses are absolutely hilarious.
However, there are many people here who simply do not know the answer to 1+1 and you should by now know that in truth 1+1 = a window.
If you do not believe me, then I suggest using a very old method of communication called a pen and paper, then start by placing 1+1 together and then place the equal sign above and below the 1+1. Since I am no good with the ascii I am hoping that someone here will be able to work out the ascii code and draw the appropriate answer 🙂
ok, true confessions, I’m the dense one…. I thought the entire thing was a parody, but re-reading now I gather that the Gaea super-duper Cray computer is real for Oak Ridge and NOAA, the parody is simply what was added in the article’s artwork for new panels and special processing steps, etc. Either way it’s a great article, but I had been thinking that all of it was made up for the story.
OK, here we go:
—
Gæa
1. Ancient Earth-mother goddess; mother and spouse of Uranus; also mother of the Titans, the Furies and the Cyclopes. Under the variant spelling Gaia, a name for the biosphere; as in Lovelock’s “Gaia Hypothesis.” Has been proposed as a name for the planet Earth; known figuratively as “Our Lady Gæa.” Also: Gea. Hence: Gæan, Gean.
Gaia—Variant of Gæa. This spelling should be avoided, as it is usually mispronounced in English as guy-ah [as opposed to the proper pronounciation, gay-uh]. Moreover, Gæa or jee-uh, gives us the sound of the common prefix, e.g. geology.
2. Gaea, in Greek mythology, the earth; daughter of Chaos, mother and wife of both Uranus (the sky) and Pontus (the sea). She was mother, by Uranus, of the Cyclopes, the Titans, and others, and, by Pontus, of five sea deities. She helped cause the overthrow of Uranus by the Titans and was worshiped as the primal goddess, the mother of all things.
===================
Don’t bitch at me, I found it here:
http://deoxy.org/define/Gaea
u.k.(us) @ur momisugly December 23, 10:45 pm
I’m not a great believer in Wikipedia, (whilst it might well guide one to research elsewhere). However, you might like to study this entry under Gaia. (note the spelling)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology)
It all seems a bit mystical, thinkest though?
“davidmhoffer says:
December 23, 2011 at 10:02 pm
…
The question being, having been warned by Gaea, will NOAA build an Ark?”
Good one! Groaaan.
I see I have been well beaten to the punch. My immediate reaction was ” Does this super computer overcome the basic computer utilization problem, ‘garbage in – garbage out'”?
I presume the publicity and the event itself, is expected to add crediblity to the NOAA data?
I can’t imagine why all the readers are so unimpressed! (sarc)
As “Aussie” says, the humorous comments are brilliant and entertaining.
I second his Christmas wishes to Anthony and add mine to all who seek and promote the truth.
Finally, all the Gaea worshippers have something (someone?) concrete to bow down to!
Nope. Punish the innocent and promote the guilty. A special manifestation of the Peter Principle.
Initially they were going to call it HAL…
There’s a parallel machine – in comes South Korea, out goes North Korea.
Wow! Imagine how fast thing that can perform data falsification calculations, cover-up emails, and come up with models that don’t work.
Colossus – The Forbin Project. Remember what happened?
Or Fredric Brown, “Answer” (1954):
http://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html
“Gaea is NOAA’s prime supercomputing resource, and it will become the third petascale machine housed at ORNL. Jaguar, soon to be morphed into Titan, and Kraken, a National Science Foundation machine, are the others.”
I think we may be seeing a schism in the heavens for the Warmist believers. While some consult Gaea, others may be loyal to The Kraken.
Ulirch Elkmann,
Thanks! I’ve been trying to remember the name of that story for the last couple of days. Very apropos.
Mind you, in this case, they haven’t actually created g_d. All they’ve done is created a computer that they SAY is g_d.
I couldn’t see Al Gore at first,then i spotted him second fom the end.
Gaia worshiper trash in – Gaia worshiper trash out.
End
of story.
42
Thanks for all the fish
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojydNb3Lrrs&w=420&h=315%5D
I’m surprised no one came up with the connection.
Mark says:
December 23, 2011 at 5:33 am
“As the density and speed of supercomputers increases, the models can compute on smaller and smaller volumetric areas and possibly use smaller time intervals. The idea that higher resolution makes the models more accurate is the driving force for greater computing power. While it is true that accuracy might be increased based upon the design of the model for individual time steps, the uncertainties regarding the validity of the model design creates an error delta in each time step.”
The only errors you can remove my increased resolution are truncation/discretization errors (or their equivalents for finite element or spectral element approaches). As you point out, modeling errors (due to assumptions and approximations inherent to the physical models) are still there. Moreover, no one has demonstrated to me that the equations they are solving are even mathematically well-posed – that is, that a mathematical solution even exists. Of course, when is comes to REALLY discussing the mechanics of the numerical methods used in climate models, it seems that our modelers and warmist friends go into hiding…
Well if they run out of funding, they’ll be able to punch out some serious bitcion with that iron
davidmhoffer says: “The question being, having been warned by Gaea, will NOAA build an Ark?”
Yes. And it will go into a wooden crate, and stored in a huge federal warehouse with all the other lost Arks the federal government has been collecting over the years. The warehouse is administered on a federal grant by Miskatonic University, in Arkham, Massachusetts.
GIGO applies to supercomputers, too.
You know you’ve been reading too many sceptic climate blogs; when you can understand all 20 stages.
Good thing they didn’t call it Deep Thought.