Most recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth), and the China
Meteorology Administration's Institute of Desert Meteorology Urumqi recently
acquired powerful SGI computing solutions to drive new discoveries in a range
of environmental and atmospheric sciences . "Studying the Earth system is important to society, but it also
presents fascinating problems in fluid dynamics, physics, chemistry, geology,
hydrology and computer science," said Hill, whose modeling work in MIT's
Program of Atmospheres, Oceans and Science incorporates a 16-processor SGI(R)
Altix (R) server with 80GB of memory, which was installed at MIT in the summer
of 2004.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc . NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security
and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and
climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation 's
coastal and marine resources.noaa.

unidata geophysics

And today, Silicon Graphics
(NYSE: SGI) announced that scientists at three respected institutions have
joined the ranks of researchers worldwide who rely on SGI(R ) computing,
visualization and storage solutions to study and preserve the planet's
resources and ecosystems. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil
more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland
security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital
broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for
scientific, engineering and creative users.

oceans eos

"
In western China, researchers at the Institute of Desert Meteorology,
Urumqi, part of the China Meteorology Administration, are turning to
high -performance SGI technology to develop new insights in ecological
regeneration, sustainable use of natural resources, and the image of desert
areas on global climate change. SGI servers, visualization systems, and
storage area network solutions were installed in March to give the institute's
researchers dramatic new capabilities in their search for answers to climate
changes and weather patterns in western China and beyond.gov
National Weather Service's national climate Web portal:
http: //www.

designated idd

Achieving those insights requires numeric analysis and modeling
of enormous amounts of weather data. With offices worldwide, the
company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are
registered trademarks, and NUMAflex and The Source of Innovation and
Discovery is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

atmospheric earthquakes

By studying certain aspects of desert climates, institute researchers may
discover new truths about global warming and even gases and glacial-snow
meteorology.
For researchers at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and
Technology in New Bedford, Mass.
NOWData stems from the collaboration between NOAA's Office of Climate,
Water and Weather Services, part of NOAA's National Weather Service, which
provides weather and water services to the United States, American Samoa, Guam
and Puerto Rico; the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, the official archives
of U.S."
Past weather data offered by National Weather Service forecast offices and
linked from the NOWData Web site are considered preliminary, and therefore
unofficial.

earth oceans

, and can be found on the Web
at http://www.com. Then, by clicking on the NOWData tab, users can access a wide range
of climate products for nearly 3,900 locations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an agency of the
U.

supercomputing simulator

com
256-864-3426

SGI PR HOTLINE
650-933-7777

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650-933-0283

(Logo: http://www.S.

seismicity prediction

"Powerful
systems such as SGI Altix allow us to accelerate our ability to apply basic
science to these practical problems. Only state-of-the -art
technology like the kind provided by SGI could deliver the performance and
architecture we needed to support our combined data analysis and modeling
approach.
"NOWData enhances access to recent past weather information, which is
often the focus of questions the National Weather Service receives from the
public," said Dennis McCarthy, director of NOAA's Office of Climate, Water and
Weather Services.noaa.weather.

earthquakes oceanography

earthquakes badc

"To understand the practical problems the world faces, we first need to
comprehend the underlying, purely scientific problems," Hill said., is a leader in high -performance
computing, visualization and storage.gov
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center: http://www.

badc supercomputing

These include
Dalhousie University, Israel's Jacob Bluestein Institute for Desert Research ,
NASA Ames Research Center, the University of Minnesota Supercomputing
Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Fleet Numerical Meteorology
and Oceanography Center. Hill and his team also make extensive use of the 10,240-processor
Columbia Altix supercomputer at NASA Ames Research Center.

badc seismicity

SGI's vision is to provide technology
that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the
21st century.

MEDIA CONTACT
Marla Robinson
marlar@sgi.
"NOWData is a potentially vast educational resource for teachers and
students undertaking weather - and climate-related projects," said Thomas Karl,
director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center .ncdc.

supercomputing polar

Commerce Department.

idd atmospheric

World's Leading Scientists Study and Preserve Earth Environment With Help From SGI Technology

An eight-processor SGI Altix system, installed during June 2004, serves as
the compute engine for the three-year project.newscom.

oceans designated

Daily past weather is
available for the last two years with climate averages for the standard 30-
year period of 1971-2000 and extremes for as long as a station has been taking
observations.

On the Web:
NOAA: http: //www.

eos seismicity

At MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences,
researcher Chris Hill is working with fellow scientists at MIT and elsewhere
to deploy advanced computing technology for studying phenomena including ocean
circulation, weather systems, climate dynamics and seismic and mantle
processes. Until recently, biological
data collected intermittently on ships lacked the duration and geographic
breadth to provide a meaningful context for broad-based studies in this area .com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041022/DCF003LOGO )
By visiting the National Weather Service's national climate Web portal,
users can click a desired location on a national map and be taken directly to
the local climate page of the appropriate National Weather Service forecast
office.

130 atmospheric

, As Earth Day
2005 approaches, more scientists than ever are working to understand our
environment and mankind's impact on it.

paleontology designated

They join a long list of SGI customers pioneering the study of global
warming and the impact of environmental changes on the Earth.

simulator nerc

By handling larger problems all at once,
we can get to our results sooner." In particular, Hill said, Altix servers are
"powerful tools for formally combining simulations and observations to produce
giant brain-scans of the whole plant in unprecedented detail. "Our existing resources weren't
adequate to produce the high-resolution regional modeling effort we had in
mind," said Jim Bisagni, principal investigator on the project and associate
professor at UMass Dartmouth. weather and climate information; and the nation's six Regional Climate
Centers that operate the database which supports NOWData. "NOWData is a source of
data that is collected by instruments that are components of the Global Earth
Observation System of Systems.

oceanography eos

"This project involves assimilating and
analyzing huge amounts of data from multiple sources. SILVER SPRING , Md. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation
System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA also is working with its federal partners and
60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as
the planet it observes.

geophysics observing

This makes SGI's high-performance
computing, visualization and storage technologies a vital part of the
institute's work., in the United States
and/or other countries worldwide.

earth disasters

, climate changes in the western North
Atlantic Ocean may hold the answers to how oceanic circulation and biology
impact the carbon cycle, the intricate web of interactions between the
biosphere , atmosphere, oceans and geosphere -- all of them linked by the
element that is the basis of all life on Earth.
But by comparing circulation models with two new sources of
data -- satellite-based observations and location-specific data collected
within waters located off the coast of New England -- scientists have a chance
to generate new and useful simulations.

NOAA Web Portal Makes the Search for Past Weather Data User-Friendly

Certified weather data, for uses such as litigation, are
available only through NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

earthquakes unidata

MIT, UMass Dartmouth, and China Meteorology Administration Are Latest to Join
Global Research Efforts Powered by SGI

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. This unique global shared-memory architecture
enables researchers to hold entire data sets in memory, allowing for faster
and more interactive data analysis, and resulting in more incisive
conclusions., Finding climate information,
such as past weather conditions and temperature and precipitation averages and
extremes, can be easily achieved through NOWData (NOAA Online Weather Data) --
a tab click away on the newly-standardized climate pages of the 122 local
National Weather Service forecast offices.

earthquakes paleontology

"
SGI computing, visualization and storage solutions are particularly well
suited to scientific applications, due in large part to SGI's third-generation
NUMAflex(TM ) architecture.sgi.gov/climate

polar prediction

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