Acquisition of a High-Performance Computing Cluster for the Penn State "Earth System Science Center (ESSC)"

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EAR-0548962MannThe Penn State Earth System Science Center or "ESSC" (www.essc.psu.edu) was originally founded within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1986. The ESSC maintains a mission to describe, model, and understand the Earth's climate based on a research approach that involves (i) a multi-tiered approach to climate modeling, (ii) the use of long-term, high resolution climate model integration experiments, (iii) an emphasis on "process oriented" studies to bridge multiple timescales, and (iv) the synthethis of modeling, empirical analyses, and studies of fundamental processes. The ESSC also seeks to promote interaction among scientists (faculty, students, and staff) within the various departments of EESI and EMS, and to provide educational opportunities and computational resources to both students and researchers at Penn State affiliated with the center. With expertise in the areas of geochemistry, geology, ice science, climatology and climate sensitivities of weather phenomena, and climate modeling, and new leadership by Director M. Mann, the ESSC has the basic ingredients required for a world-class center for the study of climate and paleoclimate. What has been lacking in recent years, however, are the computational resources required to meet ESSC research goals. Such needs can now be met with the grant provided by the NSF EAR/IF program in response to our proposal submitted in 2005. This grant will allow the ESSC to purchase a high-performance Linux computing cluster. Based on previous benchmarking by ESSC personnel, this computing cluster will be suitable for many of the computationally intensive numerical models to be used in the center, providing both MPI and Open-MP parallelization, and substantial increases in speed over the Penn State EESI Cray, which is in the process of being phased out. ***