The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has turned to an IBM supercomputer to improve its climate change research. Called "Blueice," the computer is capable of a peak speed of 12 teraflops and a sustained speed of 2 teraflops.

The purchase of the supercomputer is the first phase of a multi-year effort to modernize the research center's computing systems and help answer climate change questions. IBM says the computer would look at problems such as the increasing severity of storms, the prevalence of droughts, and work on improving forecasting capabilities.

"The answers are eagerly awaited by everyone from insurance companies trying to determine the risks associated with severe weather events to agricultural giants grappling with issues of crop yield to coastal residents attempting to make informed decisions about where to live," an IBM spokesperson told BetaNews.

Blueice will consist of p5 575 Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) nodes, running at 1.9 GHz. It will also include 4 terabytes of memory, and 150 terabytes of storage. The computer would be the first supercomputer at NCAR to pass the sustained teraflop milestone, IBM said.

"NCAR is committed to implementing computer systems that will enable greater understanding of Earth's climate and weather," Deep Computing vice president Dave Turek said. "Entrusted with this extremely important mission, NCAR has established an exciting technology roadmap that will help allow the organization to meet its goals today and in the future."

IT specialists at IBM and NCAR are already looking past Blueice to its successor, expected to ship in 2008. That computer would be based on the upcoming POWER6 architecture.