Cluster Ohio Sites
Distributed Computing to Support Interdisciplinary Research in Space Geodesy and Earth Sciences Using the OSC 16-node SGI Cluster
C. K. Shum
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science
The Ohio State University
Abstract
The 16 node cluster will be used to
- conduct interdisciplinary research using cluster-style distributing computing in the areas of interdisciplinary research in space geodesy and geosciences, including geophysical inverse problem of gravity field modeling, atmospheric water vapor retrieval, and ice-stream velocity retrieval, using advanced gravity mission measurements, data from spaceborne GPS-equipped Low-Earth Orbiters (LEOs) and GPS network, and Synthetic Aperture Radar interferometry (InSAR) data;
- develop parallel and distributed computing algorithms and tools using publicly available utilities like Message Passing Interface (MPI) [Gropp et al., 1994] and Parallel Linear Algebra Package (PLAPACK) [van de Geijn, 1997] and OSC numerical libraries (e.g., ScaLAPACK, PBLAS etc) for geophysical inverse problem in Earth gravity field determination, 4-D data processing to retrieve GPS water vapor, and processing of radar data associated with InSAR for mapping of ice stream velocities; and
- develop visualization tools specifically applicable to GPS meteorology and InSAR applications. The tools will be developed based on existing software systems currently operational or under development at the Laboratory for Space Geodesy and Remote Sensing Research, located at Bolz Hall 246, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, The Ohio State University.
The three interdisciplinary research foci (gravity field modeling, GPS meteorology, and InSAR) are relevant to currently funded investigations by NSF, NASA, NIMA, DLR (German Space Agency and Remote Sensing Facility), and NASDA (Japanese Space Agency). The researchers will conduct research using this system and other systems available through OSC. The developed tools will be made available to the science community and unused cycles on the Cluster will be made available to statewide users.
Installation Date
TBD
Configuration
16 node (32 733 MHz Intel Itanium processors) SGI 750 System |
