IBM has been selected to upgrade the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s supercomputing system for forecasting.
Cray has also partnered with IBM for the work to expand the capacity of NOAA’s two operational supercomputers to 2.5 petaflops by October 2015, the agency said Monday.
“These capabilities enable NOAA experts and researchers to make forecasts that help inform and protect citizens, †said Anne Altman, general manager of IBM Federal.
NOAA wants to increase the capacity of each of the two operational supercomputers to 0.776 petaflops in late January prior to the planned upgrade.
The agency said it also plans to kick off operations for a new global forecast system this month with resolutions between 27 kilometers to 13 km out to 10 days and 55 km to 33 km for 11 to 16 days.
NOAA also seeks to increase the global ensemble forecast system’s horizontal resolution from 55 km to 27 km out to eight days and 70 km to 33 km between nine and 16 days.
