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Mosaic of NCCS Hispanic American staff
09.17.21 -NCCS Celebrates National Hispanic American Heritage Month
With roots as diverse as Spain, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico, six Hispanic Americans working with the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) bring dedication and joy to supporting and accelerating NASA science.
Section of painting showing dinoasaurs and humans
09.13.21 - The Rock That Ended the Dinosaurs Was Much More Than a Dino Killer
In this New York Times interview, NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) user Bill Bottke from the Southwest Research Institute described NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer as a “game changer” for his research team, which ran simulations of 130,000 model asteroids evolving over hundreds of millions of years—including the one that may have killed off the dinosaurs
Artist's concept of lunar rover on Moon's surface
09.03.21 - NASA's First Lunar Rover will Scour the Moon's South Pole for Water in 2023
With NASA planning to land the world's first autonomous lunar rover to search for water deposits, scientists are creating 3D road maps for the rover to safely explore the lunar surface using the agency's open-source Stereo Pipeline software tool and NAS's Pleiades supercomputer.
Visualization of air temperature anomaly, ice surface melt extent, and 500 mPa height during peak melt extent on Greenland
08.31.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot - 2021 Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Events: A Variety Pack
The summer of 2021 is remarkable for a series of late-summer melt events that have covered large areas of the Greenland Ice Sheet, even extending to its highest point at Summit Station. These events have been captured in the GMAO Forward Processing (FP) analyses and in routine numerical weather predictions produced from the GEOS forecast model, running at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Visualization of turbulent flows around aircraft
08.30.21 - NASA Glenn Aerospace Engineers Use Supercomputers at NAS to Predict Turbulent Air Flows
NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) experts recently helped aerospace engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center optimize their high fidelity Wave-Resolving Large-Eddy Simulation (WRLES) code, which they use to predict turbulent flows that occur around aircraft. These predictions can help design engineers reduce noise during takeoff and landing, and improve fuel efficiency during all stages of flight.
Portion of a Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA)-based digital elevation model (LDEM) maps of a site near the Moon’s South Pole
08.27.21 - NCCS Enables High-Resolution Elevation Maps of Moon’s South Pole
Empowered by NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) resources, scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Brown University built new high-resolution elevation maps near the Moon’s South Pole to enhance NASA lunar science and exploration.
Spatial pattern of near-surface temperature anomaly of June 2021 relative to 1981–2020 over the western U.S.
08.25.21 - GMAO Snapshot – The Abnormally Hot June 2021 in the Western U.S.: A MERRA-2 Perspective
An extreme heat wave occurred over much of the western U.S. and southwestern Canada in late June 2021. The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) used daily and monthly near-surface temperature from MERRA-2 Reanalysis — run at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) — to compare the hot conditions of this year with the previous 40 years.
Visualization of gas in and around an evolving galaxy
08.23.21 - Visualization of Gas Around a Simulated Galaxy
Visualizations developed by NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division experts are helping scientists understand how galaxies form and evolve. Researchers in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Johns Hopkins University ran this simulation of gas in and around an evolving galaxy on our Pleiades supercomputer for the Figuring Out Gas & Galaxies In Enzo (FOGGIE) project.
Photo of Tom Schardt
08.20.21 - Supercomputers for Science: Honoring Tom Schardt’s NASA Legacy
The NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) reflects back on Robert H. Goddard Legacy Award winner Tom Schardt, who had an impactful, 37-year career at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, centered around the support of science through the use of high-end information technology.
Density fluctuations in the subsurface layers of a star with 1.47 solar mass and a one-day rotational period
08.09.21 - NAS Models Illuminate Understanding of Rotating Stars
Researchers in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division are developing highly realistic models to help improve our understanding of the internal processes of rotating stars, and at the same time enhance knowledge of our Sun and how it affects us here on Earth. Their simulations, run on the Pleiades supercomputer, revealed some surprising results.
Photo of David New
08.06.21 - NCCS User Spotlight: Dr. David New
To better understand how early-career scientists are using NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) resources, we interviewed NASA post-doc David New, who fine-tunes weather prediction models at NASA Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
3D model of the stellar magnetic corona of Kappa 1 Ceti
08.03.21 - NASA Model Describes Nearby Star which Resembles Ours in its Youth
New research led by NASA provides a closer look at a nearby star thought to resemble our young Sun. Using the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility, the researchers performed simulations of the star Kappa 1 Ceti with an updated model and data inputs from a variety of space missions.
Map of aerosol optical depth due to black and organic carbon over North America at 6 UTC on July 21, 2021
07.30.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot: An Early Start to the North American Biomass Burning Season in 2021
The GEOS FP weather analysis and forecasting system shows the long-distance pollutant transport from Western North American wildfires in July 2021. GEOS-FP runs four times per day at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Cross-section of intern photo collage
07.29.21 - NCCS Celebrates National Intern Day!
To honor National Intern Day, the NASA High-End Computing Program at Goddard Space Flight Center introduces the summer 2021 NASA interns working in various groups across the Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (CISTO).
Simulation of a latanoprost molecule, using the Conformer-Rotamer Ensemble Sampling Tool (CREST) software tool
07.28.21 - COVID Researchers Complete Projects Using Supercomputers at NAS
Using computing resources at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility, COVID-19 scientists from around the U.S. conducted rapid research in the fight to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus and develop treatments and vaccines to help bring an end to the pandemic. Three research projects were recently completed, and results have been shared via publications and presentations.
Photo of Watson River Upper Canyon, Carcross, Southern Lakes Region, Yukon, Canada
07.23.21 - Scientists Measure Impacts of Fire and Other Disturbances on North American Boreal Forest Biomass
Leveraging NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) and Boston University (BU) high-performance computing resources, academic researchers analyzed 31 years of satellite data to measure how disturbances including fire and timber harvests have impacted the aboveground biomass (AGB) in North American boreal forests.
Illustrator of VIPER rover on the Moon
07.15.21 - New Maps Help Developers Plan Lunar Road Trip for VIPER’s Artemis Mission
A team at at NASA’s Ames Research Center is using the processing power of the Pleiades supercomputer, combined with NASA’s open source Stereo Pipeline software, to develop maps of the Moon’s terrain by layering thousands of satellite images taken by cameras aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The maps wiil be used by the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), scheduled to land on the Moon in 2023 to search for ice and other resources.
Photo of Marshall Shepherd
07.14.21 - NCCS User Spotlight: Dr. Marshall Shepherd
To highlight one of NASA’s most renowned supercomputing users, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) spoke with the ground-breaking, prolific, and award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. Marshall Shepherd.
Visualization of potential vorticity and temperature over Pacific Northwestern North America
07.09.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot: A Dynamical View of the Record Heatwave of June 2021 in Western North America
During the last week of June 2021, an unprecedented heat wave engulfed the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada. The Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) analyses and forecasts, which run at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), captured the dynamical nature of this major heat event.
Visualization of a portion of NASA's X-59 plane
07.07.21 - Inside NASA's X-59 Plane: Supersonic Flight Without the Boom
NASA and Lockheed Martin's vision for the future of supersonic flight is now in its final stages of development. Getting the X-59 through the design process has taken a lot of testing in virtual wind tunnels, with many of these complex simulations performed by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division's LAVA team on NAS supercomputers over the last several years.
Visualization of ozone during sudden stratospheric warming over Antarctica
06.29.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot: The Anomalous 2019 Polar Stratospheric Chemistry in GMAO’s Assimilation Experiments
At the end of August 2019, a rare sudden stratospheric warming commenced in the Southern Hemisphere as a result of anomalously high wave activity. Using the new Constituent Data Assimilation System developed at the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) and running at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), scientists conducted an analysis of the dynamical and chemical evolution of the 2019 polar vortex and ozone depletion.
Visualization of bolides (bright meteors) in Earth’s atmosphere over North and South America
06.28.21 - New Bolide Detection Pipeline Deployed on NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer
Scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center have published a paper in Icarus on the development of an automated pipeline to detect bolides — bright meteors — in Earth’s atmosphere. Data gathered from the GOES Geostationary Lightning Mapper satellite is processed through the pipeline, optimized and validated on the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility’s Pleiades supercomputer.
Visualization of solar wind and magnetic field lines during a streamer-blowout eruption and coronal mass ejection from the Sun
06.25.21 - NCCS-Hosted Simulations Bring to Light a New Type of Coupled Eruption from the Sun
Using the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Discover supercomputer, scientists simulated complex interactions between large structures in our Sun’s atmosphere that unexpectedly produced a new type of “coupled eruption.”
Photo of Mike Little with IBM System/360 computer center in background
06.18.21 - NCCS Staff Spotlight on Mike Little: Time Traveling in NASA Supercomputing
To better understand the roots of using supercomputing for science at NASA, NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) staff member Mike Little shared Goddard's history with the IBM System/360 and the Beowulf computer cluster.
ECCO ocean circulation visualization showing surface ocean current speed
06.14.21 - NAS Visualization Experts Expand Access to High-Resolution Ocean Simulations
The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Visualization and Data Analysis team recently released a new database of pre-computed visualizations from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) project’s 14-month global ocean simulation, enabling scientists all over the world to download and customize the visualized data to support their own research.
Photo of Aitken modular supercomputer container
06.14.21 - Aitken Expansion Clocks More than 10,000 Hours in First Three Months
As soon as the Aitken supercomputer's new nodes went into production after its recent expansion, NAS users quickly put them to use for their science and engineering projects.
Map of potential landslide risk output by NASA’s Landslide Hazard Assessment Model in June 2021
06.10.21 - Machine Learning Model Doubles Accuracy of Global Landslide ‘Nowcasts’
What if we could identify at-risk areas anywhere in the world at any time? Enter NASA’s Global Landslide Hazard Assessment (LHASA) model and mapping tool — hosted by the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS)
Photo of a coral reef in American Samoa
06.08.21 - NASA Partners with Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation to Expand Efforts to Map Corals
NASA’s Ames Research Center is partnering with the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation to use their extensive high-resolution data about reefs and expand NASA’s coral mapping capabilities even further. The partnership will use the massive Global Reef Expedition dataset in conjunction with the neural network and the Pleiades supercomputer at Ames.
Photo Robin Kovach
06.08.21 - NCCS User Spotlight: Robin Kovach
To celebrate World Ocean Day, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) spoke with one of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s ocean scientists, Robin Kovach.
Coronal mass ejection simulation overlapping a SOHO C2 observation
06.03.21 - Which Way Does the Solar Wind Blow?
Using supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility at NASA's Ames Research Center, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, researchers are developing new software for improved space weather prediction.
Map showing the predicted habitat suitability distribution for Cassin’s Sparrow
05.22.21 - CISTO Scientists Adapt MaxEnt to Address the Big Data Challenges of Climate Science
Researchers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (CISTO) are working to overcome the MaxEnt software’s Big Data limitations by testing a more effective method of using large, high-dimensional datasets, like those produced by global climate models.
Photo of Orroral Valley Fire near Tuggeranong, Australia
05.14.21 - NCCS-Enabled Satellite Data Assimilation Reveals Vegetation Changes from Massive Australian Bushfires
To better understand how Australia’s unprecedented 2019–2020 fire season affected vegetation, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientists and international collaborators mounted an experiment at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), assimilating NASA satellite data into a computer model and analyzing the output.
Photo of Ying Shen
05.07.21 - NCCS Staff Spotlight: Ying Shen
In honor of Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) recognizes the contributions of a staff member who exemplifies the best qualities of this team, contributing every day to NASA’s missions and supporting scientific research through his hard work and many talents.
Portion of world map showing CMIP6 contributors
04.30.21 - GISS and NCCS Contribute to CMIP6 International Climate Model Intercomparison Project
The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) contributed results from hundreds of the institute’s historical and future climate simulations to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The GISS simulations ran on the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Discover supercomputer.
Map of Europe comparing GEOS-CF forecasts and GAW observations
04.27.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot: GEOS-CF Surface Ozone Compares Well Against Background Observations from the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Network
Comparisons against observations from the GAW network highlight that NASA’s GEOS composition forecast system (GEOS-CF) captures much of the observed spatial and temporal variability of surface ozone. GEOS-CF runs daily at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Features contributing to Atmospheric River Dena
04.23.21 - GMAO Science Snapshot: GEOS-S2S Predicted 2020 Summertime Precipitation Anomalies Three Months in Advance
The Goddard Earth Observing System Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction System, Version 2 (GEOS-S2S-V2) — running at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) — forecasted a persistent negative precipitation anomaly on the west coast three months ahead of time and with high probability.
Photo of Lesley Ott
04.21.21 - NCCS User Spotlight: Lesley Ott
As part of NASA’s Earth Day celebration, this spotlight shines on Lesley Ott — from her growing up in the Washington, DC suburbs with a mother who taught math and science to her challenging work today as a research meteorologist in NASA Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
Visualization of two orbiting supermassive black holes
04.15.21 - New NASA Visualization Probes the Light-bending Dance of Binary Black Holes
A pair of orbiting black holes millions of times the Sun’s mass perform a hypnotic pas de deux in a new NASA visualization created at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Nitrogen dioxide above the U.S. Mid-Atlantic states during March 2020
04.03.21 - COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Climate Appear Limited and Short-Lived
Initial results from a climate model intercomparison project suggest that the economic and social changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic won't provide any real climate benefits. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) contributed results from their GISS ModelE, which runs at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Visualization of CFC-11 emissions from eastern China during 2014–2017
03.26.21 - NCCS Staff Spotlight: Mary Aronne
Honoring Women's History Month, this spotlight focuses on Mary Aronne’s journey from visiting NASA Goddard as a child to working there today as a support scientist at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Features contributing to Atmospheric River Dena
03.24.21 - GMAO Science Snapshots Focus on an Atmospheric River and Soil Moisture
With NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) support, NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) studied 1. the role of a rare atmospheric river in record floods across the Middle East and 2. the contributions of different types of observations to soil moisture data products.
Flow visualization of NASA’s X‑59 supersonic, low-boom aircraft concept
03.16.21 - Using NAS-Developed Tools to Quiet the Boom of Supersonic Flight
Researchers at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility are using in-house-developed tools to help NASA develop its innovative low-boom supersonic X-plane.
A section of the Pasang Lhamu Highway in Nepal
03.12.21 - New NASA Landslide Mapping System Running at NCCS
Empowered by NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) high-performance computing resources, a new open-source landslide mapping system is enabling swift landslide detection and information sharing with emergency response agencies.
Photo of NASA Pleiades supercomputer
03.01.21 – Deciphering Medical Risk with High-Performance Computing
Researchers at NASA Ames are performing complex DNA sequence analysis on the Pleiades supercomputer to help identify medical risks to astronauts during future missions to the Moon, and to answer questions about COVID-19 genetic variations in humans.
Map of Fire Weather Index seasonal anomalies across North America during June–September 2020
02.22.21 - GMAO Science Snapshots Look at Drought and Fires
Supported by NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) resources, NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) calculated 1. the impact of regional U.S. drought on land and atmospheric carbon and 2. fire emissions in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics during 2020.
Visualization of CFC-11 emissions from eastern China during 2014–2017
02.17.21 - NASA-funded Network Tracks the Recent Rise and Fall of Ozone Depleting Pollutants
A short-lived resurgence in the emission of ozone depleting pollutants in eastern China will not significantly delay the recovery of Earth’s protective “sunscreen” layer, according to new research published Feb. 10 in Nature. Supporting computations with the NASA 3D GEOS Chemistry Climate model ran at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Predicted atmospheric specific humidity from a numerical weather prediction application
02.16.21 - High-Performance Supercontainers Show Promise for Earth System Prediction
Using a NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) supercomputer and other high-performance computing platforms, the multi-agency Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) successfully demonstrated software “supercontainers” for its next-generation Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) system.
Intern Adam Freidman standing in front of a TESS image
02.10.21 - NASA Summer Intern Combines Data Science and Astronomy – with Stellar Results
Adam Friedman, a 2020 summer intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, analyzed a deluge of data on the brightness changes of over 70 million stars using the Discover supercomputer and Advanced Data Analytics PlaTform GPU Cluster at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
Forecast map of dust aerosol optical thickness over the Atlantic Ocean and southern U.S.
02.10.21 The GMAO Supports Field Campaigns During a Challenging Year
Despite an unpredictable 2020 for planning airborne and ship-based field campaigns, the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) was still able to support a number of missions that required specialized products. GMAO forecast models and visualization portals run at the NCCS.
Photo of solar physicist Haihong Che from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
02.08.21 - Solar Physicist Proposes New Mechanism for How Electrons Work in Solar Flares
A new mechanism to explain how electrons work in solar flares has been proposed by a University of Alabama in Huntsville solar physicist using a theoretical model of particle acceleration and the supercomputers of NASA’s High-End Computing Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division.
Side view of the Orion Pad Abort 1 flight test simulation
02.04.21 - LAVA: NASA’s Hottest Flow Solver Contributes to Astronaut Safety
The NAS Division’s LAVA software is helping to reduce risk and ensure the safety of astronauts on the launch pad and during the moments after takeoff.
Photo of Shayna Skolnik with virtual reality headset
02.04.21 - Shayna Skolnik: Visualizing Disaster Impacts with Virtual Reality
Through Navteca, Shayna Skolnik collaborates with NASA to demonstrate and investigate the potential of virtual reality and augmented reality to improve data accessibility and visualization for Earth science research and disaster response efforts. Data sources include the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal, a geographic information system website hosted by the National Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
A coronal mass ejection erupting from the Sun (left) and the resulting solar storm colliding with Earth’s protective magnetic field, the magnetosphere (right)
01.29.21 - Machine Learning Study Identifies the Internal Structure of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections.
In a machine learning study supported by the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and university heliophysics researchers have gained insights into the internal structure of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs)—gigantic clouds of magnetized gas that erupt from the Sun and travel through the solar system.
Illustration of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
01.22.21 - 'Sextuply-Eclipsing Sextuple Star System' Discovered Whirling through the Milky Way
Data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) that astronomers analyzed on the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Discover supercomputer has revealed a sextuple star system less than 2,000 light years from Earth.
Full-disk image of the Sun captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory
01.14.21 - Heliophysics Hackweek 2020 Coronal Holes Team Publishes Results at NeurIPS 2020
Helio Hackweek 2020 “Coronal Holes” team members and other hackweek participants continued their collaboration and published a paper and poster of their results at the 34th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. “SEARCH: SEgmentation of polAR Coronal Holes,” was published at the Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop.
101st AMS Annual Meeting logo
01.06.21 - NCCS-Enabled Science Advances Being Presented at Online AMS Annual Meeting
From more accurate hydrology forecasts to improved understanding of cyclone dynamics, science advances enabled by NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) resources are the subject of posters and virtual presentations at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS 101), being held online January 10–15, 2021.

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