2001 EARTH SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID |
Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| THE "ORIGIN" OF 21ST CENTURY CLIMATE STUDY
| G01-090 | 12/11/01 |
00:07:01 | From portraying the current climate in
more concrete figures to simulating future global warming scenarios,
NASA will provide a firmer basis for policy decisions using a new
supercomputer that is among the most powerful of its kind. With
memory technology developed specifically for NASA, the 512-processor
SGI Origin 3800 will allow climate models to run more than four times
faster and at double the resolution of the old system.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): Computer of The
Future - The 512 -processor SGI Origin 3800 supercomputer,
recently went into service at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md. Goddard is only the second site in the world to put a computer
of this type into production. In technology developed especially for
NASA, all processors share the computers 128-part memory as if it
were a single entity to improve performance significantly over other
clustered architectures. Up to a tenfold improvement on an Earth
science application has been realized with this new architecture
using optimization techniques and multi-level parallelism (MLP)
software developed at Ames Research Center.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (2): Global Climate Models - The Origin is primarily used by Goddard's Data Assimilation Office, which is building software for incorporating satellite observations into global climate models. Because of its processing power and MLP software, the Origin can run climate models four times faster and at double the resolution of the old system. In this climate model from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument aboard the TERRA satellite, the Earth reflects short-wave radiation (sunlight) back into space. Whites and tans indicate where the planet reflects more sunlight back into space due to surfaces such as clouds or deserts. Greens and blues show areas where less sunlight is reflected. Understanding energy coming into and out of Earth's dynamic sphere is critical for determining the accuracy of global climate change models.
Courtesy:NASA
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| ITEM (3): Data Gathering- Web
of Satellites - Data assimilation uses observations from
satellites and other sources to define the physical processes that
make up weather and climate. Scientists working with the Origin will
combine assimilation systems for several satellites so that the
impact of one type of data will be felt by another type of data. By
using data sets from three distinct satellites that view the earth at
different spatial levels, this sequence of images was electronically
knitted together to show a zoom in of the Hollywood sign from space.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (4): Human Influences on
Climate - Using the Origin, the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies (GISS) in New York will better be able to explore natural and
human influences on the climate in the long term. Aerosols from bio
mass burning and human production affect rainfall on our planet.
Rain falls freely through clear skies on the left of the following
animation, while human-made pollutants and the smoke from bio mass
burning choke off rain on the right. Scientists know that aerosols
have a net cooling effect on the planet's surface, but still have
questions about what this means for the long-term well being of our
climate system.
Courtesy:NASA
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| ITEM (5): Climate And
Oceans - GISS Chief Dr. James Hansen says the Origin will
allow scientists to make more realistic representations of global
climate systems, including filling the pressing need to represent the
full atmosphere with adequate vertical resolution, and to represent
the ocean with better horizontal and vertical resolution. This
sequence from CERES shows long-wave radiation (heat) emitted back
into space by the Earth. Oranges and reds show where heat flows back
into space, where light blues and whites show were less heat escapes.
The earth absorbs more energy in the tropics than in the polar
regions, thereby driving the circulation of the planet's atmosphere
and oceans.
Courtesy:NASA
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