IBM has built a multimillion-dollar supercomputer at Brown University in Rhode Island that will help researchers there and throughout the region tackle a host of computational projects. The center opened Nov. 20.
The supercomputer at the university's centre for computation and visualisation will run at a peak performance of more than 14 teraflops—or trillion floating point calculations per second—and is 50 times more powerful than the system it's replacing, according to IBM and Brown officials.
The supercomputer will be a boon for research not only at the university but across the region, according to Brown officials. The university and IBM plan to work with other schools, hospitals, businesses and government agencies across Rhode Island in determining how best to use the supercomputer.
They also will conduct a series of symposia that will involve scientific experts considering how the system can be used to address societal problems in the state.
"Combined, the supercomputer and the symposia allow us to begin to tackle our state's most sobering challenges, thus allowing for economic growth and stability through productivity, innovation and competitiveness," Clyde Briant, vice president for research at Brown, said in a statement.
Among the first users will be scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.
"This new system will help scientists make our world smarter, through the ability to address problems that are orders of magnitude larger than what they could address just a few short years ago—from mapping the human genome to helping figure out how to cut down on carbon emissions to helping ensure our waters and food are safe and sustainable," Nick Bowen, vice president of technology at IBM, said in a statement.
The supercomputer comes with 1,440 microprocessors and is based on three IBM iDataPlex systems, which combined are about the size of six refrigerators, according to IBM officials. Also includes in the system is an IBM Cluster 1350 and multiple IBM storage systems running General Parallel File System.
Support comes from IBM Global Services.
In all, the system has 390TB of storage and holds 4.5TB of memory—about 70 times what Brown's previous system could hold—and researchers can now compute a problem that is 20 times larger in the same time frame.
In addition, the backbone network jumps from 1G bit to 10, and the supercomputer is six times more efficient that what had been at the school previously.
eweekeurope.co.uk
Energy Efficient IBM Supercomputer Will Investigate Climate Change
British climate change scientists 'conspired to keep sceptics in the dark'
Scientists at a British climate change research centre discussed ways of dodging Freedom of Information Act requests to release temperature data, it is claimed.
Leaked emails and documents appear to show that scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit conspired to keep US climate change sceptics in the dark about the existence of the act.
The private messages have been seized upon by climate-change sceptics, who claim one email includes an admittance that robust data to prove the world is warming up simply doesn't exist, and that data which did not support global warming was deliberately suppressed.
The embarrassing emails came to light after hackers targeted the CRU and published the files. Many are from the unit's director, Professor Phil Jones, including one in which he appears to suggest using a 'trick' to massage years of temperature data to 'hide the decline'.
In another, he says: 'I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperat
It seems to show how scientists were able to persuade the FOI officer that requests from a climate- change sceptic, Stephen McIntyre, who runs a website called Climate Audit, should not be treated seriously.
'When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests,' the email says. 'It took a couple of half-hour sessions to convince them otherwise.
'Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA became very supportive. I've got to know the FOI person quite well and the chief librarian - who deals with appeals.'
Another email seems to show that the CRU discussed ways of evading the Freedom of Information Act entirely. The act allows organisations to decline requests for information if the requests are 'repeated or vexatious'.
A spokesman for the University of East Anglia said: 'The selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way.'
Professor Jones confirmed that the email in which he talked of a 'trick' was genuine. He said: 'The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.'
ure data. Don't any of you three tell anyone that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!'
A further email from Mr Jones raises questions over how the Freedom of Information process was being adhered to at the university.
dailymail.co.uk
Climate change will affect insurance
CLIMATE change is set to make insurance more expensive and harder to obtain, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has warned.
The group said predicted rises in temperatures in the UK looked set to “significantly” increase the cost to insurers of flood and windstorm damage.
It warned this would feed through into higher premiums for consumers, while it would also mean insurers had to hold more capital in reserve for potential losses, which could lead to a fall in the availability of cover.
The ABI worked with the Met Office and risk modelling group AIR Worldwide to look at the financial implications for insurers of predicted temperature increases of 2C, 4C and 6C.
It found the average cost of losses to insurers from river flooding and flash floods could rise by 14% to £633 a year if global temperatures rose by 4C, which could happen by as early as by 2060.
Cyclones
Annual losses as a result of windstorms could increase by 25% to £827million due to predicted changes to storm tracks, along which cyclones travel.
The cost to insurers from extreme floods, which occur once every 100 years on average in Britain, could soar by 30% to £5.4billion, while the cost of extreme windstorms could rise by 14% to £7.3billion, based on a 4C rise.
The group said Wales and south-west England would be the worst-affected regions of the United Kingdom.
Nick Starling, the ABI’s director of general insurance and health, said: “A two-degree temperature rise may be inevitable, but we can limit further increases.
“The clear message to world leaders meeting at the UN’s Copenhagen climate change summit in December is that they must reach agreement on ambitious emission reduction targets.”
pressandjournal.co.uk
Climate change advertising campaign launched
The final stage of the government's Act on CO2 campaign is to be unveiled today (November 23rd).
More than 9,000 adverts will appear on billboards across England showing how Britain could soon see an end to its traditional seasons because of climate change.
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the adverts will silence sceptics who doubt the impact of greenhouse gases.
Energy and climate change minister Joan Ruddock explained the posters brought the issues of climate change to people's doorsteps, highlighting that it is a danger that will affect everyone as opposed to just distant countries.
She said: "With just 13 days before the crucial Copenhagen talks begin it is essential that we are all informed and aware of the threats posed to us by serious climate change.
"Our new Act on CO2 campaign shows how serious it is, but it also shows that we can all do something about it."
The billboard campaign follows on from the government's broadcast adverts, in which officials attempted to educate the public about the catastrophic dangers of climate change.
lowcarboneconomy.com
Leaked email climate smear was a PR disaster for UEA
The lay public, when presented with confusing data and competing arguments about climate change, deploy the mental shortcut of believing the people they most trust. Trust in the communicator is therefore crucial.
Unfortunately the three main climate change communicators: politicians, journalists and environmental campaigners, are among the least trusted people in society – fighting it out for bottom place in the ranking with lawyers and car salesmen. No one would pay any attention to them at all if they were not drawing on the aquifer of public trust in scientists.
But climate scientists have always misunderstood the dynamic of public belief and trust. They assume that belief will be built on their data and that public trust is merited by their authority. With the exception of a few outstanding communicators, they often make no attempt to speak to deeper values or make an emotional connection with the public – indeed they see that as contrary to their professional independence.
Climate change deniers have always understood this. They use language that is designed to appeal to deeper values (such as freedom, independence, progress). The narrative they tell of being determined (and even persecuted) free-thinkers, standing against the tide of oppressive and self-interested conformity is designed to create an aura of integrity and trustworthiness.
The recent hacking of the servers of the University of East Anglia can only be understood within this landscape of competing appeals to public trust. The denial industry (and hordes of climate nerds) has trawled through these emails and found sentences which, when removed from context, support their storyline that climate science is being deliberately distorted and exaggerated for a mixed bag of self-interested and politicised ends.
But you could find anything in here. I looked and found lots of references to lunch and fun, 94 to hate, 31 to love. Generally, though, the emails are extremely focused, technical, and, dare I say it, really dull. As noted on realclimate.org, the emails contain "no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords."
But this is hardly the point. This is an orchestrated smear campaign and does not require balance or context. The speed with which the emails have been cut apart and fed into existing storylines is remarkable. At the very least the UEA email campaign is an application of dirty political tactics to climate change campaigning.
I suspect it goes further than that. The storyline is too clever, the timing on the brink of Copenhagen and the US climate bill too convenient. I wait with interest to find out how these emails were obtained.
The UEA response has been frankly pathetic. It was informed by Real Climate of the hack on 17 November but only reacted two days later when journalists caught on to the story. It refused to confirm whether the emails were accurate or not and, for a long time, refused to comment at all.
Now, in typical scientist fashion, it seeks to argue the data rationally. The UEA website states that "the selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way". Mischievous? Irresponsible? What naughty pixies.
Then the Climate Research Unit director, Prof Phil Jones, focuses on one of quotes: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." For the smear campaign it is only those key words "trick" and "hide" that count – the rest can be made into anything it wants. Jones ignores this and responds with a detailed technical explanation of the passage with reference to the original graphs. It's like responding to someone calling you a bastard by showing them your birth certificate.
One can only imagine that the UEA's communications team is totally out of its depth. A less charitable conclusion is that they are defending the interests of UEA and are not concerned about (or have not understood) the damage to climate science.
I believe that Jones should speak to every journalist who calls, go on the offensive and defend his science. He ought to clearly state that he is not prepared to have his hard-working and committed colleagues around the world defamed or slandered by the kinds of people who illegally hack into computers. This is a desperate, last-ditch tactic by fanatics who have lost the rational debate.
Sadly, due in part to the lacklustre response, I am sure that these wretched emails have now entered permanently into the mythology of climate denial. Scientists are going to have to be a lot more savvy and on the ball in future.
guardian.co.uk
