"The GRACE mission is unique in its ability to measure mass changes directly
for entire ice sheets and can determine how Earth 's mass distribution changes
over time.nasa.
Most recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth), and the China
Meteorology Administration's Institute of Desert Meteorology Urumqi recently
acquired powerful SGI computing solutions to drive new discoveries in a range
of environmental and atmospheric sciences. Until recently , biological
data collected intermittently on ships lacked the duration and geographic
breadth to provide a meaningful context for broad-based studies in this area. SGI's vision is to provide technology
that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the
21st century.

equatorial adapted

gfz -potsdam.accufore.com

"To understand the practical problems the world faces, we first need to
comprehend the underlying, purely scientific problems," Hill said. SGI servers, visualization systems, and
storage area network solutions were installed in March to give the institute's
researchers dramatic new capabilities in their search for answers to climate
changes and weather patterns in western China and beyond.sgi.

satellites temperatures

They demonstrated for the first time that
Antarctica's ice sheet lost a significant amount of mass since the launch of
GRACE in 2002."
AEF has developed a methodology to determine the change in
probable hurricane activity based on evolving atmospheric and oceanic
conditions.

nino equatorial

Because ice sheets are a large source of uncertainties in
projections of sea level change, this represents a very important step toward
more accurate prediction, and has important societal and economic impacts. U. winter storms) and analyzing the risk
associated with ocean eddies for oil production companies operating in
the Gulf of Mexico and other regions. And today, Silicon Graphics
(NYSE: SGI) announced that scientists at three respected institutions have
joined the ranks of researchers worldwide who rely on SGI(R) computing,
visualization and storage solutions to study and preserve the planet's
resources and ecosystems.

poseidon noaa

utexas. The methodology is captured in AEF's Hurricane Index,
which AIR uses to create an alternative, climate-conditioned catalog
of potential hurricane activity. Utilizing the latest science and technology, AIR models
natural catastrophes in more than 40 countries and the risk from
terrorism in the United States. "Powerful
systems such as SGI Altix allow us to accelerate our ability to apply basic
science to these practical problems .

enso cpc

GRACE is able to overcome these issues, surveying
the entire ice sheet, and tracking the balance between mass changes in the
interior and coastal areas. The results will appear in this week's issue
of Science. "The new
AIR-AEF offering provides insurers with valuable insight into which
regions have a heightened risk of hurricane activity during the
upcoming season. This should enhance insurers ' risk management
strategies, allowing them to key in on locations where hurricane
activity is most likely to deviate from the long-term average. "Southeastern Louisiana, for
example, is about 20% more likely to be hit by a tropical cyclone
during El Nino years. "This project involves assimilating and
analyzing huge amounts of data from multiple sources.

impacts phenomena

016 inches) per
year to global sea level rise. Science data processing,
distribution, archiving and product verification are managed jointly by JPL,
the University of Texas and GFZ. This unique global shared-memory architecture
enables researchers to hold entire data sets in memory, allowing for faster
and more interactive data analysis , and resulting in more incisive
conclusions.

cpc misuse

WASHINGTON, Scientists were able to conduct the
first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet using data from
the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
(GRACE). The estimated mass loss was enough to raise global sea level
about 1.
That is about how much water the United States consumes in three months (a
cubic kilometer is one trillion liters; approximately 264 billion gallons of
water )."
In western China, researchers at the Institute of Desert Meteorology,
Urumqi, part of the China Meteorology Administration, are turning to
high-performance SGI technology to develop new insights in ecological
regeneration, sustainable use of natural resources, and the image of desert
areas on global climate change. This makes SGI's high-performance
computing, visualization and storage technologies a vital part of the
institute's work.
For researchers at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and
Technology in New Bedford, Mass."
SGI computing, visualization and storage solutions are particularly well
suited to scientific applications, due in large part to SGI 's third-generation
NUMAflex(TM) architecture.

academies phenomenon

The Antarctic mass loss findings were enabled by the ability of the
identical twin GRACE satellites to track minute changes in Earth's gravity
field resulting from regional changes in planet mass distribution.g.
By studying certain aspects of desert climates, institute researchers may
discover new truths about global warming and even gases and glacial-snow
meteorology.

phenomena topex

NASA Mission Detects Significant Antarctic Ice Mass Loss

"Antarctica is Earth's largest reservoir of fresh water," Velicogna said. To track these changes, GRACE measures micron-
scale variations in the 220 kilometer (137 mile) separation between the two
satellites , which fly in formation. GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ), Potsdam, Germany,
is responsible for German mission elements.
The AEF Hurricane Index reflects fluctuations in climate signals,
such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the variability of
sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, and the North
Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), all of which can influence hurricane
activity .
Additional areas of expertise include forecasting other natural
atmospheric hazards (e. For more information, please visit
www. Achieving those insights requires numeric analysis and modeling
of enormous amounts of weather data., climate changes in the western North
Atlantic Ocean may hold the answers to how oceanic circulation and biology
impact the carbon cycle, the intricate web of interactions between the
biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and geosphere -- all of them linked by the
element that is the basis of all life on Earth. "Our existing resources weren't
adequate to produce the high-resolution regional modeling effort we had in
mind," said Jim Bisagni, principal investigator on the project and associate
professor at UMass Dartmouth. All other trademarks mentioned herein are
the property of their respective owners.

compared impacts

compared impacts

2 millimeters (0.4 millimeters (.

Business Editors/Technology Editors

BOSTON + NARRAGANSETT, R. (AEF) are offering companies the ability to estimate hurricane
losses based on climate forecasts.com

About AIR Worldwide Corporation

AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR) is a leading risk modeling company
helping clients manage the financial impact of catastrophes and
weather.
But by comparing circulation models with two new sources of
data -- satellite -based observations and location-specific data collected
within waters located off the coast of New England -- scientists have a chance
to generate new and useful simulations.

academies enso

GRACE is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
Pasadena, Calif.air-worldwide.
At MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences,
researcher Chris Hill is working with fellow scientists at MIT and elsewhere
to deploy advanced computing technology for studying phenomena including ocean
circulation, weather systems, climate dynamics and seismic and mantle
processes.

phenomenon topex

This represents a change of about 0.
Measuring variations in Antarctica's ice sheet mass is difficult because
of its size and complexity.

About Accurate Environmental Forecasting

AEF is the technological leader for providing numerical weather
prediction (NWP) based hurricane hazard products worldwide . Using
state-of-the-art hurricane and weather forecast systems, AEF provides
their clients with the best scientific information available for
managing their atmospheric and oceanic natural catastrophe risk., As Earth Day
2005 approaches, more scientists than ever are working to understand our
environment and mankind's impact on it. "Studying the Earth system is important to society, but it also
presents fascinating problems in fluid dynamics, physics, chemistry, geology,
hydrology and computer science ," said Hill, whose modeling work in MIT's
Program of Atmospheres, Oceans and Science incorporates a 16-processor SGI(R)
Altix(R) server with 80GB of memory, which was installed at MIT in the summer
of 2004.

(source: NOAA - text slightly adapted)

disruptions slightly

Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, both from the University of Colorado,
Boulder, conducted the study.edu/grace

http://www.S. Other areas of expertise include
site-specific seismic engineering analysis, catastrophe bonds, and
property replacement cost valuation. Headquartered in Boston, AIR has additional offices
in North America, Europe, and Asia.MIT, UMass Dartmouth, and China Meteorology Administration Are Latest to Join
Global Research Efforts Powered by SGI

MOUNTAIN VIEW , Calif.com.

ni equatorial

The researchers
found Antarctica's ice sheet decreased by 152 (plus or minus 80) cubic
kilometers of ice annually between April 2002 and August 2005.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics , SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are
registered trademarks, and NUMAflex and The Source of Innovation and
Discovery is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

jpl poseidon

Previous estimates have used various techniques, each with limitations and
uncertainties and an inherent inability to monitor the entire ice sheet mass
as a whole.

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www.csr.
"Our index captures the climate phenomena that can influence
hurricanes impacting the coastal United States," said Dr. Southeastern North Carolina is about 50% less
likely to be hit by a tropical cyclone when an El Nino occurs in
conjunction with low North Atlantic Oscillation conditions., and can be found on the Web
at http: //www.

jpl cpc

Most of the mass loss came from the West
Antarctic ice sheet.
AEF's web address is www.

misuse satellites

As
more GRACE data become available, it will become feasible to search for
longer-term changes in the rate of Antarctic mass loss," she said.----AIR
Worldwide Corporation (AIR) and Accurate Environmental Forecasting
Inc.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States
and/or other countries worldwide .

ENSO is the generic term for these phenomena.

characterized unusually

05 inches) during the survey period; about 13 percent
of the overall observed sea level rise for the same period. A member of the ISO family of
companies , AIR was founded in 1987 to provide its insurance,
reinsurance, corporate, and government clients a complete line of risk
modeling software and consulting services that produce consistent and
reliable results. Hill and his team also make extensive use of the 10,240-processor
Columbia Altix supercomputer at NASA Ames Research Center. By handling larger problems all at once,
we can get to our results sooner.
An eight-processor SGI Altix system, installed during June 2004, serves as
the compute engine for the three-year project.

MEDIA CONTACT
Marla Robinson
marlar@sgi .

El Nio and La Nia are disruptions of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather around the globe.

ni meteorology

"Combining GRACE data with data from other instruments such as NASA's Ice
Cloud and land Elevation Satellite, radar and altimeters that are more
effective for studying individual glaciers is expected to substantially
improve our understanding of the processes controlling ice sheet mass
variations," Velicogna said. The University of Texas Center for Space Research has overall
mission responsibility. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil
more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland
security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital
broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for
scientific, engineering and creative users.

Websites about the climate phenomena El Nio and La Nia, including ENSO in general and related topics.

misuse jpl

de/grace

Its development leverages more than 150 years of hurricane
data from the National Hurricane Center's Atlantic Hurricane Database. Lewis
Rothstein, AEF president and co -CEO. Only state-of-the-art
technology like the kind provided by SGI could deliver the performance and
architecture we needed to support our combined data analysis and modeling
approach., is a leader in high-performance
computing, visualization and storage.com
256-864-3426

SGI PR HOTLINE
650-933-7777

SGI PR FACSIMILE
650-933-0283

adapted phenomenon

This comprehensive study found the ice sheet's mass has decreased
significantly from 2002 to 2005 . Even studies that synthesized results from several techniques,
such as the assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
suffered from a lack of data in critical regions.gov/home

For more information about Grace on the Web, visit:

http://www."
The AEF forecasts can be accessed through AIR's CLASIC/2(TM) and
CATRADER(R) systems or on a service basis .
They join a long list of SGI customers pioneering the study of global
warming and the impact of environmental changes on the Earth.

phenomenon meteorology

Mass
movement of ice, air, water and solid earth reflect weather patterns, climate
change and even earthquakes. The new risk modeling capability,
which combines AIR's loss modeling technology and AEF's expertise in
forecasting the climate's impact on hurricane risk, provides insurers
and reinsurers with a risk assessment tool to manage hurricane risk
for the forthcoming season.
"Anticipating the impact of current climate conditions can
significantly improve seasonal hurricane risk assessment for
insurers," said Uday Virkud, senior vice president at AIR. Founded in 1998, AEF is
committed to providing expert scientific information in a form that
can be easily applied for our client's risk assessment requirements." In particular, Hill said, Altix servers are
"powerful tools for formally combining simulations and observations to produce
giant brain-scans of the whole plant in unprecedented detail. With offices worldwide, the
company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.

La Nia is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, compared to El Nio, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.

equatorial topex

AIR and AEF Offer Insurers the Ability to Estimate Potential Hurricane Losses Based on Climate Forecasts

I.

World's Leading Scientists Study and Preserve Earth Environment With Help From SGI Technology

These include
Dalhousie University, Israel's Jacob Bluestein Institute for Desert Research,
NASA Ames Research Center, the University of Minnesota Supercomputing
Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , and the Fleet Numerical Meteorology
and Oceanography Center.

poseidon disruptions

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- - kjjkjk

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