NEW ORLEANS — Republican control of the Senate means that one the most fanatical climate change deniers in Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is now in line to head the Senate subcommittee that oversees science funding. This is not good news for supercomputing.

In scientific research, climate change is one of the most demanding applications, both in terms of processing power and data production. Scientists create global atmospheric models, study the chemistry and physics and from this can determine how the Earth’s climate is changing and mankind’s influence on it.

Supercomputers may well be the best tool in the toolbox for understanding climate change. This type of research takes a big system, and last week NASA took delivery of a new SGI supercomputer, capable of two petaflops. This x86, Linux-based system, with 30,000 cores, replaces a four-year-old, 150 teraflop system. The new system is 18 racks but uses the same amount of power as the older system, while delivering more than eight times the performance.

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