University of Victoria Climate Modelling Laboratory: Supercomputing for Climate Science in the Big Data era

维多利亚大学气候模拟实验室是加拿大最重要的气候模拟中心之一。我们的实验室由3名教授和15名实习生组成，我们与加拿大气候模拟和分析中心的科学家有着密切的关系。我们研究气候学的各个方面：过去、现在和未来，从地方到全球尺度。******我们的工作需要大量的计算机资源。我们参与了尖端气候模型的开发，在开发过程中需要快速测试，所以我们需要不间断地访问许多处理核心。我们使用的许多数据集都是巨大的（每个数据集至少有几十太字节——所谓的“大数据”），所以我们需要大量的空间来存储它们，并需要足够强大的计算机来快速分析这些数据。******我们的申请是一个小型超级计算机来支持实验室的所有工作，取代各种计算机在他们的生命周期结束和/或不足以满足我们当前和未来的研究需求。拥有专用的本地计算设施对于我们有效地工作和处理最重要的主题是必不可少的，而不考虑计算要求，并且是对我们使用国家（Compute Canada）设施的补充。******这台计算机将使我们能够为国内和国际气候科学做出前沿贡献，并在大数据时代培养下一代加拿大气候科学家使用高性能计算，模型开发和数据分析。由于加拿大处于气候变化的前沿，这种增加知识和人才基础的能力对于理解未来几十年对我们的环境和社会的影响，并指导我们适应气候变化至关重要。

The University of Victoria Climate Modelling Laboratory is one of the most important centres for climate modelling in Canada. Our Lab consists of three professors, fifteen trainees, and we have close relationships with scientists from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis. We work on all aspects of climatology: the past, present and future, from local to global scales. ******Our work requires a lot of computer resources. We are involved in development of cutting edge climate models, which need to be tested quickly as we are developing them, so we need uninterrupted access to lots of processing cores. Many of the datasets that we use are huge (least tens of terabytes each - so called "big data"), so we need lots of space to store them and sufficiently powerful computers to analyze these quickly. ******Our application is for a small supercomputer to support all of the work in the Lab, replacing various computers which are at the end of their lives and/or not sufficient for our current and future research needs. Having dedicated local computing facilities is essential for us to work efficiently and work on the most important topics, irrespective of computing requirements, and is complementary to our use of national (Compute Canada) facilities. ******This computer will enable us to make cutting edge contributions to climate science nationally and internationally, and to train the next generation of Canadian climate scientists in using high-performance computing, model development, and data analysis in the big data era. As Canada is on the frontline of climate change, this ability to increase our knowledge and personnel base will be critical in understanding the impacts on our environment and society in the coming decades, and guiding our adaptations to climate change.