NASA研发云环境、高性能、微机化的气候预测系统—Climate in a Box

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    NASA官方的Climate in a Box网页：https://modelingguru.nasa.gov/community/middleware/climateinabox
     NASA's Climate in a Box Project is exploring the utility of "desktop" supercomputers in providing a complete, pre-packaged, ready-to-use toolkit of climate research products and on-demand access to an HPC system. The system architecture NASA is developing will allow automatic code updates for each user, enhanced communication between users, and effective tools for dealing with generated data. NASA is also researching how this architecture might open the model development and validation process to the scientific community at large and enable a natural selection process resulting in more efficient modeling.
                                                               Climate in a Box Installation Guide 2.1
创建于: 2011-2-7 下午9:41 作者 Robert Burns, III - 最后修改:  2012-3-14 上午7:10 作者 Carlos Cruz

[size=1em]March 4, 2012

1. Overview

[size=1em]This document describes the instructions necessary to install the vendor software, system tools, science models, utilities and workflow tool that are part of the "Climate in a Box" toolset on a new system.  There are a few key points to note before beginning an installation:

• These  instructions are provided as a preliminary guide only.  The steps involved are still under evaluation in the toolkit and may not work in  all situations or may require additional steps and adjustments!
  

• Many of these steps are being automated as part of a toolkit deployment package, namely the model installation steps.  These utilize automation scripts to make the installation process easier.  Currently, the installation refers to some of these automation scripts and are necessary to complete the installation.  These automation scripts are located in a Subversion repository on the NCCS Progress system under this path:
  
  svn/astg/cib
  

• Third-party commercial and open source packages are also required, along with special instances of tools as part of the toolkit.
  

[size=1em]Please refer to the Climate in a Box website for details on this project.

2. Computing Systems Installation

[size=1em]These instructions show how to install the Climate in a Box setup on a system.

2.1 Core System-Level Setup

[size=1em]This section covers the common system packages and system environment settings that are necessary or useful for building or running the Climate in a Box models or for using additional tools, such as the workflow tool.  This assumes that the system has already been configured with a recommended OS and management tools.

Required Packages

[size=1em]The following packages should be installed to support user activities and other tools:

• Java - 1.6+
• Python - 2.6+
• Emacs
• vi
• CVS
• Subversion 1.6
• git - 1.7
• …………
  

    以下消息来自http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2 ... imate_in_a_box.html
May 23, 2013
NASA Builds 'Climate in a Box'
Ian Armas Foster
The study of climate change is one of those scientific problems where it is almost essential to model the entire Earth to attain accurate results and make worthwhile predictions.

However, according to NASA, “It takes a small army of scientists and computer programmers a year or more to build a model. Then they need a supercomputer fast enough to run it. Like those models, the machines themselves can be unfriendly.”

In an attempt to make climate science more accessible to smaller research facilities, NASA introduced what they call ‘Climate in a Box,’ a system they note acts as a desktop supercomputer.

The notion of a desktop supercomputer, according to Project Manager Mike Seablom, for running global climate models is to run preliminary tests and simulations on small but high-performance systems before being transplanted and incorporated into applications on NASA’s larger supercomputers.

The ‘Climate in a Box’ systems all come standardized with a baseline software framework to facilitate a common environment in which researchers can program. The idea is that these systems could all be connected in somewhat of a virtualized cloud environment. Further, it allows scientists working in different areas to combine their expertise in a simplified manner.

“The reason we put in a common software framework is exactly for the different disciplines to come in and use the same interface to be able to exchange data, models, and workflow,” said Tsendgar Lee, High End Computing Manager, NASA HQ.

These common climate modeling conditions are based on the NASA-generated GEOS-5 model, which according to the video below, “produces highly detailed, tightly calibrated output by facilitating heavyweight climate research on modest budgets.”


The system, which runs on Linux, according to NASA, but can also be used with Windows HPC, has its programming models written in FORTRAN, meaning programmers are for the most part writing their applications in a familiar environment. Further, those programmers, according to NASA, will be able to start their applications quicker than they would for larger supercomputers for the system is “able to ingest data and start crunching shortly after installation.”

Building a comprehensive model of global climate change is essential to understanding the planet’s underlying environmental problems. A deeper understanding is the first step in taking meaningful action to correct those problems and mitigate climate change.

It is NASA’s hope that facilitating high-performance access points for smaller research institutions will further the global research effort as a whole. “[NASA’s] plan would essentially declare a minimum standard for planet climate and weather research.”
注：本帖只是介绍消息，具体安装、使用并未了解。