Scientists switch on supercomputer

Climate scientists in Wellington today switched on their new $12.7 million supercomputer -- the most powerful of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

Dubbed "FitzRoy" by researchers -- to honour pioneer scientist Robert FitzRoy -- the computer has 100 times the power of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research's (Niwa's) existing supercomputer: equivalent to about 7000 laptops working simultaneously.

Fully installed, it will weigh 18 tonnes: the floor at Niwa's Greta Point complex has had to be strengthened to hold its weight.

The supercomputer will improve the ability to forecast the impacts of severe weather events such as flooding, storm surge and inundation. It will also be used to model climate change, river flow, ocean levels and wave patterns, to help prepare for climate change.

"One of the key questions that we're trying to solve with this machine is: 'If you knew what was going to happen tomorrow, would you do something differently today?'" said Niwa chief executive John Morgan.

"More accurate forecasts of the natural environment are essential to the future growth of New Zealand's important industries like farming, horticulture, and the infrastructure and renewable energy sectors."

Mr Morgan said an economic study of a similar computer used by the UK Met Office found the benefit-to-cost ratio was nine times the cost of the computer, based on its ability to improve flood forecast lead times.

Flooding remained New Zealand's most costly year-on-year physical hazard - claims from damage caused by weather events in July and August of 2008 are estimated at $68m, according to the Insurance Council. The 2004 Central North Island floods resulted in insurance claims of more than $400m.

FitzRoy will also be used to model problems in the fields of energy, weather and climate.

Auckland University bio-engineers will use it to create computer models of the human body incorporating biochemistry, biophysics and the anatomy of cells, tissue and organs.

FitzRoy is able to perform 34 trillion (34 million million) calculations per second and this will increase to 65 trillion calculations per second after an upgrade in 2011.

It has 500,000 gigabytes of disk storage (to increase to 2 million gigabytes next year) and its two tape libraries will hold another 5 petabytes (5 million gigabytes) of data -- the equivalent of an file holding 3000 years of music.


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