I
attended a workshop in Washington, D.C. hosted by the NASA Earth Science
Enterprise group from April 30th through May 1st. The
purpose of the workshop was to address computing requirements and ascertain data
storage needs for this branch through the year 2010. Three separate groups of
researchers were in attendance: Climate, Weather, and Solid Earth research.
Roughly 150 people participated, many from NASA headquarters, JPL, and Goddard,
with a scattering of representatives from the academic realm. There were no
preconceived notions as to the outcome of the workshop. NASA ESE wanted specific
recommendations and direction from the participants.
The
original workshop structure was to split into three groups representing Climate,
Weather, and Solid Earth on the first day. These subgroups would isolate
specific requirements for their respective areas, and then report at the end of
the day to the entire group. The
second day would consist of splitting into three cross-cutting groups of equal
size developing specific requirements to offer to NASA ESE. Didn’t quite work
out this way.
The
weather and climate groups were fairly large, so I decided to participate with
the Solid Earth research section. This involves things like volcano and
earthquake prediction, mantle modeling, geomagnetic flux monitoring and
modeling, and crustal plate interactions. Many of the models are apparently new
and just coming online. Some of these models have between 1000 and 3000
variables and the model domain is the entire planet, so computing power is
definitely an issue. This particular group is also going to be on the receiving
end of data from several new satellites as well. My background being somewhat
geologic and this section being the least represented, I thought my ability to
contribute (if necessary) was optimal in the Solid Earth section.
The
first day was an exercise in self organization. There were subgroup chairs, but
nobody in any of the subgroups really knew how to start, and there was
intentionally no direction offered by the workshop hosts. Our approach ended up
being to figure out exactly how much data was going to be generated by the
models and the new satellites and then reverse engineer storage and processing
requirements, and project those requirements eight years into the future. All of
this information was put into a Powerpoint presentation (one of two which are
included with this report) and offered to the entire workshop at days end. (Web
editor's note: The two PowerPoint presentations are on file at SDSM&T). Interestingly, data generation and storage was the primary focus of the solid
earth subgroup, as well as the other two subgroups. I opted to point out that
data understanding in the forms of data analysis and visualization would be
beneficial and also computationally intensive. These ideas were accepted and
included in the Solid Earth offerings.
The
NASA ESE heads met after the first day, and decided that though many abstract
problems have been resolved, the goal of specific recommendations had not been
met. We stayed in our original groups and hammered out details that were more in
line with the workshop goals. These recommendations were presented at the end of
the second day to the entire workshop and are included in the second Powerpoint.
SD Tech’s contribution was making sure that data understanding/visualization
would be included in the recommendations to NASA ESE.
Additional observations
include:
1)
Some real concerns were voiced over the realities behind chip
technologies in general. Memory really hasn’t gotten faster and chip
innovation, short of simply enhancing speed as a marketing technique, hasn’t
really evolved. These are issues when trying to do high performance computing
with commodity clusters.
2)
Methods of getting data from distributed multiple sources in real time
for model infusion and natural hazard prediction need to exist.
3)
Model development needs to be treated as a planetary science problem.
Develop models that can run on Mars and Venus, as well as the Earth.
Finally, I appreciate being
able to participate in this workshop. I think we contributed something to the
end result.
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