NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center: Building Critical Earth-System Science Understanding

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1 NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center: Building Critical Earth-System Science Understanding Bryan Shader, Special Assistant to Vice President Research & Economic Development Professor, Mathematics Research & Partnerships Summit April 22, 2014

2 The NWSC is a partnership that includes UCAR, NCAR, NSF, the University of Wyoming, and Cheyenne LEADS. Wyoming s 20% share of NWSC base resources is used to provide better understanding of critical Earth-system science processes and to help train the next generation of scientists.

3 Geohydrology & the critical zone Water & the West Weather and climate modeling Carbon Sequestration Cyber shake Wind Energy

4 Geohydrology and Critical Zone Research The critical zone is the conveyor of lifesustaining nutrients and energy stored in minerals. Goal: understand the fundamental processes and how they are affected by change.

5 Geohydrology and Critical Zone Research Massive assimilation from old and new technologies North American Regional Reanalysis data Airborne geophysics data Resistivity and seismic data Ground penetrating radar Soil data Ecosystem data Isotope tracers Complex, multiscale modeling including Terrestrial Ecosystem Exchange Simulator (ecosystem scale model of surface/ subsurface water interactions) T-Soil model (water, heat, CO2 fluxes in soil-plant-atmosphere) Laramie snow model (spatially distributed, model for watershed scale water yield estimation) ParFlow model (hydrological model for flow in complex terrain) Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) Community Land Model PIs: Anne Sylvester, Steve Holbrook, Scott Miller

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7 Laramie snow model output Movie of snow water equivalent in A Snowy Range basin over a year. Noriaki Ohara

8 Water & the West Goal: develop a high resolution, large watershed model enabled by NWSC, yet accessible to policy makers

9 Models will help answer questions like: - What are the potential impacts of climate change on the longterm yield of water from the upper Colorado River basin? - How will future land-use changes due to development and natural causes such as fire, pine bark beetle affect water supplies? - What are the effects of trans-basin diversions and increases water consumptive use on the water storage in Lake Powell in years? PIs: Craig Douglas, Fred Ogden

10 Modeling wind farms Goals: better understand low-level wind, and provide tools to better design efficient wind farms that account for local weather patterns and geography. PIs: Dimitri Mavriplis, Jay Sitaraman Computationally intensive: 2 rev/day on 256 cores with at least 80 revs needed.

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12 FLOWYO simulation (steady wind flow) Wind speed contours D C B

13 FLOWYO simulation (turbulent inflow) Wind speed contours D C B

14 This project transforms seismic hazard analysis into a physics-based science by assimilating seismic waveform observations from past earthquakes to systematically improve earth structure and earthquake source models. Problems with current Earthquake knowledge: Existing seismic maps are focused around the faults; yet these may not be the most dangerous areas. Relies too much upon actual earthquakes to extract geological information. PI: Po Chen

15 Shear wave speed in subsurface Old algorithm With new algorithm 5 km 2 km Study requires ~60 million core hours

16 Motivating questions: Regional Climate modeling Can the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model reproduce the fine-scale spatial patterns of seasonal precipitation and runoff over the complex terrain in the western part of the North-Central region over a decade-long period? Based on the WRF model what is the expected precipitation and runoff in the North-Central region by mid-century? PI: Bart Geerts

17 Regional Climate modeling Motivating question: Can one model the effects of cloud seeding in the Snowy Range mountains, in order to have seeding be more effective/economical? PI: Bart Geerts Outcomes: The modeled storm vertical motion over the mountain reveals a turbulent boundary layer and gravity waves above the boundary layer, similar to observed. But model does not show this positive seeding effect because the rapid decrease in storm intensity overwhelmed the seeding signal.

18 Idea: Can we entomb carbon dioxide to reduce amount of greenhouse gas dispersed into the atmosphere? Question: How do we model this so that we can evaluate economic feasibility, safety? Difficulties: heterogeneity, multi-physics and time scales. PIs: Felipe Pereira and Ye Zhang

19 Education, Outreach and Training Goals Integrate Research & Education Build cyberinfrastructure and computational science in the region Train the next generation of computer scientists Enhance programs at community colleges Broaden participation Improve K-12 Computational Thinking Broaden diversity Engage the public

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