Supercomputer studying climate change now available for COVID-19 scientists
By
John Roach, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Apr 7, 2020 6:06 PM EST
According to John Hopkins University, the United States coronavirus death toll hit 10,335 as of April 6.
The Weather Industry again pitched in to assist in the work being done during the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is providing one of the nation's leading supercomputers to help research the deadly pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, according to a press release.
The NCAR-operated Cheyenne supercomputer, a 5.34-petaflop machine that ranks among the world's 50 fastest, will be available to scientists across the country who are working to glean insights into the novel coronavirus that has spread worldwide. Researchers are mounting a massive effort to learn more about the behavior of the virus, such as transmission patterns and whether it is affected by seasonal changes, even as they work toward the development of treatments and vaccines.
More than 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide have resulted in more than 78,000 deaths as of April. There have been more than 378,000 confirmed cases in the United States to go along with at least 11,000 fatalities blamed on the disease.
“The Cheyenne supercomputer is an important technology used to support our understanding of climate change and now it's being used to combat another major challenge facing humanity,” said AccuWeather’s Vice President of Science, Innovation and Development, Scott Mackaro.
Last month the White House announced the launch of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a unique public-private consortium spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, IBM, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It enables researchers to access the most powerful high-performance computing resources to accelerate understanding of the COVID-19 virus and develop methods for combating it.
Voters observe social distancing guidelines as they wait in line to cast ballots at Washington High School while ignoring a stay-at-home order over the coronavirus threat to vote in the state's presidential primary election, Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
“The National Science Foundation is very pleased to be part of the COVID-19 HPC Consortium and provide access to the Cheyenne supercomputer and the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center," said Anjuli Bamzai, director of the NSF Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences in the press release. "Cheyenne and other NSF-funded high-end computing resources will enable the nation's research community to pursue advanced modeling using artificial intelligence techniques and other approaches to gain vital insights into COVID-19 and potential strategies for protecting society.”
COVID-19 researchers can submit research proposals to the consortium via an online portal, which will then be reviewed and matched with computing resources from one of the partner institutions. An expert panel of top scientists and computing researchers will work with proposers to quickly assess the public health benefit of the work and coordinate the allocation of the consortium’s powerful computing assets.
The consortium's world-class supercomputers process massive amounts of calculations that can answer complex scientific questions in hours or days instead of weeks or months. Such computing power is at a premium, according to the release, and can be difficult for scientists to procure under normal circumstances.
The NCAR development is the latest in a series of instances in which companies and state and local government agencies are collaborating to take on the effects of the pandemic.
AccuWeather, Inc. has also assumed a role in this effort. The company has been offering hospitals and medical facilities in all 50 U.S. states specialized AccuWeather SkyGuard severe weather warning services to help reduce weather-related risks to temporary structures established for COVID-19 testing and triage. The specialized version of AccuWeather’s SkyGuard warning service includes advanced warnings for the threat of lightning, wind gusts, flash flooding and tornadoes that may impact temporary coronavirus testing and triage.
And as AccuWeather has previously reported, several distilleries and breweries across the U.S. have begun making hand sanitizer, and now masks, in response to the national shortage of the product as the outbreak has worsened in recent weeks. Automakers like Ford, Tesla and G.M. have also joined the effort by using assembly lines to manufacture breathing ventilators, of which there is a shortage in hospitals across the U.S.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
Report a Typo
News / Health
Supercomputer studying climate change now available for COVID-19 scientists
By John Roach, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Apr 7, 2020 6:06 PM EST
According to John Hopkins University, the United States coronavirus death toll hit 10,335 as of April 6.
The Weather Industry again pitched in to assist in the work being done during the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is providing one of the nation's leading supercomputers to help research the deadly pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, according to a press release.
The NCAR-operated Cheyenne supercomputer, a 5.34-petaflop machine that ranks among the world's 50 fastest, will be available to scientists across the country who are working to glean insights into the novel coronavirus that has spread worldwide. Researchers are mounting a massive effort to learn more about the behavior of the virus, such as transmission patterns and whether it is affected by seasonal changes, even as they work toward the development of treatments and vaccines.
More than 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide have resulted in more than 78,000 deaths as of April. There have been more than 378,000 confirmed cases in the United States to go along with at least 11,000 fatalities blamed on the disease.
“The Cheyenne supercomputer is an important technology used to support our understanding of climate change and now it's being used to combat another major challenge facing humanity,” said AccuWeather’s Vice President of Science, Innovation and Development, Scott Mackaro.
Last month the White House announced the launch of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a unique public-private consortium spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, IBM, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It enables researchers to access the most powerful high-performance computing resources to accelerate understanding of the COVID-19 virus and develop methods for combating it.
Voters observe social distancing guidelines as they wait in line to cast ballots at Washington High School while ignoring a stay-at-home order over the coronavirus threat to vote in the state's presidential primary election, Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
“The National Science Foundation is very pleased to be part of the COVID-19 HPC Consortium and provide access to the Cheyenne supercomputer and the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center," said Anjuli Bamzai, director of the NSF Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences in the press release. "Cheyenne and other NSF-funded high-end computing resources will enable the nation's research community to pursue advanced modeling using artificial intelligence techniques and other approaches to gain vital insights into COVID-19 and potential strategies for protecting society.”
COVID-19 researchers can submit research proposals to the consortium via an online portal, which will then be reviewed and matched with computing resources from one of the partner institutions. An expert panel of top scientists and computing researchers will work with proposers to quickly assess the public health benefit of the work and coordinate the allocation of the consortium’s powerful computing assets.
The consortium's world-class supercomputers process massive amounts of calculations that can answer complex scientific questions in hours or days instead of weeks or months. Such computing power is at a premium, according to the release, and can be difficult for scientists to procure under normal circumstances.
The NCAR development is the latest in a series of instances in which companies and state and local government agencies are collaborating to take on the effects of the pandemic.
Related:
AccuWeather, Inc. has also assumed a role in this effort. The company has been offering hospitals and medical facilities in all 50 U.S. states specialized AccuWeather SkyGuard severe weather warning services to help reduce weather-related risks to temporary structures established for COVID-19 testing and triage. The specialized version of AccuWeather’s SkyGuard warning service includes advanced warnings for the threat of lightning, wind gusts, flash flooding and tornadoes that may impact temporary coronavirus testing and triage.
And as AccuWeather has previously reported, several distilleries and breweries across the U.S. have begun making hand sanitizer, and now masks, in response to the national shortage of the product as the outbreak has worsened in recent weeks. Automakers like Ford, Tesla and G.M. have also joined the effort by using assembly lines to manufacture breathing ventilators, of which there is a shortage in hospitals across the U.S.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
Report a Typo