超级计算机非常强大，校车大小的计算机。它们的大尺寸来自于它们由数十万（有时是数百万）处理器内核组成。 （相比之下，您的笔记本电脑或台式电脑运行一台。）由于这种集体计算能力，超级计算机非常强大。对于超级计算机来说，拥有40 PB或500 tebibytes RAM内存的存储空间容量并非闻所未闻。想想你的11 teraflop（每秒数万亿次操作）Macbook很快？一台超级计算机的速度可以达到几十千万亿次 – 这是每秒四万次的操作！每天每小时，全球各地的气象卫星，气象气球，海洋浮标和地面气象站记录了数十亿的天气观测资料。超级计算机为这种潮汐天气数据的收集和存储提供了一个家。超级计算机不仅容纳大量数据，还处理和分析这些数据以创建天气预报模型。对于气象学家来说，天气模型最接近水晶球;它是一个计算机程序，可以“模拟”或模拟未来某个时候大气的条件。模型通过解决一组控制大气在现实生活中的行为的方程式来实现这一目标。通过这种方式，模型能够在实际执行之前估算大气可能做的事情。 （尽管气象学家喜欢进行高级数学运算，比如微积分和微分方程……模型中使用的方程非常复杂，手动解决需要数周或数月的时间！另一方面，超级计算机可以近似解决方案这个使用模型方程来数值近似或预测未来天气状况的过程被称为数值天气预报。气象学家在建立自己的预测时使用预测模型输出作为指导。输出数据让他们了解当前在大气层的各个层面发生了什么，以及未来几天可能发生的事情。预报员会将这些信息与他们对天气过程，个人经验以及熟悉区域天气模式（计算机无法做到的事情）的知识一起考虑，以发布您的预测。 NOAA的计算机名为Luna and Surge，在美国排名第18，是世界上最强大的100强计算机之一。超级计算机双胞胎每个拥有近50,000个核心处理器，峰值性能速度为2.89 petaflops，每秒处理高达3千万亿次计算。 （资料来源：“NOAA完成天气和气候超级计算机升级”NOAA，2016年1月。）升级价格为4500万美元 – 这是一个陡峭的数字，但需要付出的代价是更及时，更准确，更可靠，以及更详细的天气预报新机器为美国公众提供。我们的美国天气资源能否最终赶上着名的欧洲模式 – 英国的牛眼准确模型，其24万核心导致它准确预测飓风桑迪在2012年袭击新泽西海岸线前近一周的路径和强度？想想你的个人电脑可以帮助你做的一切。超级计算机执行相同的任务，只有它们的启动功能允许研究和操纵大量数据和进程。
英国伯明翰大学IT Assignment代写：超级计算机气象预测
Supercomputers are extremely powerful, school-bus-sized computers. Their large size comes from the fact that they’re comprised of hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of processor cores. (In comparison, your laptop or desktop computer runs one.) As a result of this collective computing capacity, supercomputers are immensely powerful. It’s not unheard of for a supercomputer to have a storage space capacity in the neighborhood of 40 petabytes or 500 tebibytes of RAM memory. Think your 11 teraflop (trillions of operations per second) Macbook is fast? A supercomputer can reach speeds of tens of petraflops—that’s quadrillions of operations per second! Every hour of every day, billions of weather observations are recorded by weather satellites, weather balloons, ocean buoys, and surface weather stations around the world. Supercomputers provide a home for this tidal wave of weather data to be collected and stored Supercomputers not only house volumes of data, they process and analyze that data to create weather forecast models. A weather model is the closest thing to a crystal ball for meteorologists; it’s a computer program that “models” or simulates what the atmosphere’s conditions could be at some time in the future. The models do this by solving a group of equations that govern how the atmosphere acts in real life. In this way, the model is able to approximate what the atmosphere is likely to do before it actually does it. (As much as meteorologists enjoy doing advanced math, like calculus and differential equations…the equations used in models are so complex, it would takes weeks or months for them to solve by hand! On the other hand, supercomputers can approximate solutions in as little as an hour.) This process of using model equations to numerically approximate, or forecast, future weather conditions is known as numerical weather prediction. Meteorologists use forecast model output as guidance when building their own forecasts. The output data gives them an idea of what’s currently happening at all levels of the atmosphere and also what’s possible in the coming days. Forecasters take this information into consideration along with their knowledge of weather processes, personal experience, and familiarity with regional weather patterns (something a computer can’t do) to issue your forecast. Named Luna and Surge, NOAA’s computers are the 18th fastest in the U.S. and among the top 100 most powerful supercomputers in the world. The supercomputer twins each have nearly 50,000 core processors, a peak performance speed of 2.89 petaflops, and process up to 3 quadrillion calculations per second. (Source: “NOAA Completes Weather and Climate Supercomputer Upgrades” NOAA, January 2016.) The upgrade comes at a pricetag of $45 million—a steep figure, yet a small price to pay for the more timely, more accurate, more reliable, and more detailed weather forecasts the new machines offer the American public. Could our U.S. weather resources finally be catching up to the renowned European model —the UK’s bullseye-accurate model whose 240,000 cores led it to accurately predict the path and strength of Hurricane Sandy nearly a week before it hit the New Jersey coastline in 2012? Think of everything your personal computer helps you do. Supercomputers do the same tasks, only their kicked-up power allows for volumes of data and processes to be researched and manipulated.