Using supercomputers to explore ice sheet dynamics
Monday, February 28, 2011 - 11:02
in Earth & Climate
Recently, Rhode Island-sized chunks of ice have separated from Greenland and Antarctica, garnering worldwide attention. But is this calving due to typical seasonal variations or a long-term warmer world? Climate scientists already use ice sheet models to better understand how ice loss affects sea levels; however, those models are not easily adapted for use in global climate models. In August the Scalable, Efficient, and Accurate Community Ice Sheet Model project began on Jaguar, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. SEACISM's aim is to use state-of-the-art simulation to predict the behavior of ice sheets under a changing climate by developing scalable algorithms.