NSF Gives Supercomputer Time For 3-D Model of Spill

CWmike writes "Scientists have embarked on a crash effort to use one the world's largest supercomputers to create 3-D models to simulate how BP's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill will affect coastal areas. Acting within 24 hours of receiving a request from researchers, the National Science Foundation late last week made an emergency allocation of 1 million compute hours on a supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to study how BP's gusher will affect coastlines. The computer model they are working on 'has the potential to advise and undergird many emergency management decisions that may be made along the way, particularly if a hurricane comes through the area,' said Rick Luettich, a professor of marine sciences and head of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who is one of the researchers on this project. Meanwhile, geographic information systems vendor ESRI has added a social spin to GIS mapping of the BP oil spill."

Comments

In Time?

[MozeeToby]

Is it really possible to develop, test, and run a complex simulation of the gulf's currents and weather in time for it to be useful for the recovery? It seems to me like the kind of job that could take a couple years to get right, even assuming we know everything we need to make such a simulation. Maybe they want the simulation developed today so that it can be used to evaluate potential future disasters? To help quantify the risk involved in this kind of drilling?

Re:In Time?

[omnichad]

If my knowledge of B-movies is correct, there's already a GUI interface with 3D graphic modelling too (in Visual Basic, no less)! It's just a matter of typing a few parameters on a keyboard. How real supercomputers got mixed up in a cheap disaster movie, I'll never know.

Re:In Time?

[Monkeedude1212]

Well, You're actually not too far from the truth. Surprisingly enough, video game engines provide great simulators for these kinds of things.

I know of a few cases where people have licensed the Unreal Engine for creating their own simulators, specifically I think it was to deal with some high collision testing. Since the Unreal team has started with some fluids physics, its not hard to see someone possibly using that engine to simulate the effects.

Then, all thats needed is the writing of Entities, which is usually done in C++, not VB. But the idea is the same, you only need about a weeks worth (40 hours) to write the basic entities you'll need, and maybe a bit longer for the complicated ones. Depends on what you are simulating, but if say there are only 4 different types of matter they have to consider, water, oil, air, dirt, than there really isn't that much to add.

So, really, the GUI would be already made, it'd probably be the Unreal Map Editor. The Code they would be writing would be C++, which most /.ers can at least recognize, and you won't need to make any models, since you are going to be using brushes for the landscape and liquids for the rest.

Not that they had to us Unreal, they also could use the Source Engine, though I don't think source offers much in the lines of liquids. But there are actually many ways to go about this. In fact, some modelling and animation software lets you simulate water physics, one in particular I know but I can't recall the name right now. (A plugin for Maya or 3dsMax or Softimage? Bah).

So really, the only LENGTHY part of development is duplicating the ocean currents, which if you have recent records on, is about as trivial as stitching their co-ordinates to the map you create, and making your entities flexible enough to handle the varied input.

I'm not trying to belittle the task of simulating something like this, but with a team of 10 or so people I could see it being done rather quickly. You have to realize that simulations are never quite 100% like the real thing. They have to cut off at some approximation point to keep the simulation running, otherwise the computer would hang trying to figure out the googelth digit. So, really, because the gulf is so large, its not like they have to calculate everything down to the particle.

Re:In Time?

[squidfood]

I don't know about the GOM specifically, but models of oceanography of most regions around the U.S. have been under development, availability, testing, and use for quite a while, and substantial toolkits exist, so it's just a matter of putting some fluid of the right density in the right place and getting present starting conditions. The crunch is really getting the computer time to run the models which is what the new money addresses.

And yes, there's also a lot of graphical toolboxes so whipping together a quick display isn't B-movie territory (though using VB is contraindicated: Xwindows and fortran are preferred).

Re:In Time?

[Stephen Samuel]

Considering that BP doesn't even bother measuring how much oil is spilling

Well, I'm pretty sure that they have a rough idea, and it's way more than what they're saying in public. They just don't want to formalize their estimates, because then they'll have to report the numbers. I did some napkin (units(1)) calculations based on the volume of dispersant that they say they've been using and, if they're using at the suggested dilution, then at a minimum they're dealing with 60K~500K barrels per day.
((don't have the actual calculations on hand, right now, and I'm on a different computer, so I can't even just look at my command line history))

And that's a minimum.... the volume that they're using may be limited by the supply chain.

I'm guessing that, in internal conversations, they're duck-speaking their way around solid numbers... For example, they can talk about how much dispersant they'll need ( a number based on oil flow), but there's probably an unwritten rule about never mentioning the oil flow estimate that underlies that calculation, because it'll be seekable in disclosure requests, and they'll still be able to 'truthfully' claim that they've never talked about the actual oil flow.

Re:In Time?

[Bill Barth]

The code in question (ADCIRC) has been used for years to do hurricane storm surge simulations. It's being continuously developed for work in the Gulf of Mexico and already includes contaminant transport effects. Also, as with all things scientific, "right" is a relative quantity. The better question is whether or not useful predictions can be made that are better than what's been done so far. I think the answer to that is a resounding "Yes!" Finally, I guarantee that this event will be used by modelers to refine and improve their codes for years to come. Recent hurricances (Ike, Rita, Gustav, etc.) have been used in the very same way.

Re:In Time?

[jpmorgan]

Uh, no. Nobody uses the Unreal Engine or the Source Engine to model diffusion and fluid flow. This is a field I work in professionally and academically, and you'd be a laughing stock if you seriously suggested taking this route. There is an enormous difference between a game engine which is designed to make things look good, and an accurate physical simulator.

Furthermore, the underlying software already exists, academically and commercially, with 6 figure licensing fees, which is good because developing a simulator and validating it would take months, as the GP said. The challenge isn't writing the code, it's building an accurate model.

Offtopic

[Pojut]

Explain something to me: you people bitch about government getting involved with private industry, yet when BP screws up, you demand the government to take over. WTF?

You want the government to take over...ok, what do you expect them to do? BP has the equipment, the government does not.

You all want the government to step in...yet you don't want them to raise the liability cap. So...you want taxpayers to pay for cleaning up a private company's mess, then?

Shifting gears...

This is NOT a reason to stop offshore drilling. Offshore drilling is an essential part of our current energy use. What this is, however, is a good reason to reinforce laws surrounding safety and preparedness standards...and make sure they are fucking followed.

Re:Offtopic

[Pojut]

The government should hire all they can to contain and control the situation

They already have (and have had) a page set up specifically for this.

and make BP pay for it, since BP won't act on their own to minimize profits damages instead of environmental damages.

They are trying to, but many Republicans are blocking legislation to raise or remove the liability cap.

Re:Offtopic

[Pojut]

Proof that a moderate such as myself will never be labeled as such.

I'm for offshore drilling because it provides us with the energy source that we currently need today. I'm also in favor of extensively researching and quickly implementing alternative fuels so that we can get away from oil entirely.

With me, it isn't "drill, baby, drill"...it's "drill for now, but not for long". Thanks for your partisan slant though, I appreciate it.

Re:Offtopic

[Lithdren]

Odvious troll is odvious but I thought i'd add a comment. Its all togeather possible the people demanding the Goverment take over the situation are not the same people who want the goverment out of private industry. Its quite possible people are saying what they fell on one subject, while steering clear of the other one, that would contradict their original feeling. Imagine that!

Re:Offtopic

[causality]

Proof that a moderate such as myself will never be labeled as such.

I'm for offshore drilling because it provides us with the energy source that we currently need today. I'm also in favor of extensively researching and quickly implementing alternative fuels so that we can get away from oil entirely.

With me, it isn't "drill, baby, drill"...it's "drill for now, but not for long". Thanks for your partisan slant though, I appreciate it.

You often see this in discussions. I think the propaganda, demagoguery, invective, and intellectual dishonesty so frequently seen in the media and especially in politics has infected the easily impressionable who derive their mannerisms and actions from the media. You can call them sheeple, mindless automatons who think their behaviors and thoughts are their own original creations, easily impressionable, non-self-aware, unable to carry out introspection, followers, and lots of other things. As for that post to which you replied, what happened there has happened to me several times.

The (lack of) thinking goes something like this: "well, he used certain words or otherwise vaguely sounds a little bit like a cookie-cutter opinion that I have seen before, probably from some pundit, therefore I will refuse to deal with him as an individual and will instead regard him as a member of a school of thought or other group identity, that way I don't have to bother really listening to what he has to say or understanding where he is coming from." You'll notice this is always done to condemn and belittle, for that's how such people obtain their worthless sense of worth. Specifically, it's an attempt to diminish in order to make it easier to condemn. It treats people as members of a system and it's the very opposite of treating others like human beings.

The motivation is that they are not interested in truth. They are interested in feeling "right" or better than someone else at all costs. For them, argumentation is not about testing ideas and increasing understanding. It's about humiliating your opponent and rubbing his nose in it. Thus, they have no interest in dealing with individual human beings for, unlike mindless talking points, there are no automatic ready answers for the points they make. That interferes with their goal of feeling "right" and at the very least makes them work much harder to achieve it.

In closing, a quote from Aristotle:

Hubris: "to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater."

Re:Offtopic

[mcgrew]

You want the government to take over...ok, what do you expect them to do? BP has the equipment, the government does not.

First off, whoever modded you offtopic should have his moderator priveledges taken away.

Now to the actual topic: Government shouldn't take over, but they'd damned well better show some oversight, and make sure that BP is following all laws to the letter. They may have the equipment, but they don't have the motivation -- their only motivation is to rake in profits, or the "accident" wouldn't have happened.

Obama needs to fire the head of the agency overseeing this; the regulators are, according to newspaper accounts, in bed with those they are regulating.

Personally (and I think a lot will agree) someone high up in BP ranks should spend some hard prison time over this. Of course, the people who own the mine that exploded a month or so ago should be in prison for manslaughter or negligent homicide, since they were sited time and again for the very things that caused the explosion.

Why aren't corporate heads ever put in prison for negligent homicide when the company disobeys laws and people die?

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper fucking booming would've been a good start.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/865387/-Fishgrease:-DKos-Booming-School

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I have no doubt that the WH has "boots on the ground," as you say. I also have no doubt that the WH also has "boots under the beds" of execs from just about every sector including energy, media, finance, and automotive.

Re:Um...

[Pojut]

Rest assured...someone knows. It just isn't us. BP likely knows, which is (from their perspective) a good reason why we don't.

Re:Um...

[confused one]

The models might actually be a good way to verify the estimates. Is it 5,000 barrels a day (not) or 30,000-70,000 barrels (within the realm of possibility). We know it's not 5,000 because they're pumping it out now at 5,000 (with the 4" pipe the inserted into the riser) and they haven't had much effect on the outflow.

Photos of Louisiana Shores

[Anonymous Coward]

I caught this link a day or two ago. Take a look.

Compute Hours?

[adbge]

For those unfamiliar with a "compute hour", the supercomputer in question is capable of 63,000 compute hours per hour. To put this into perspective, the NSF seems to have allocated about 15 hours of supercomputer time to this project. 15 hours is, of course, not nearly as sensational as 1 million compute hours. ;)

Tar Ball

[c0d3r]

They should make a big Tar Ball containing the build of the software they write that performs this analysis.

Re:Tar Ball

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Why bother? Once they open the tarball they'll just pipe the output fulfill their dependencies. ;)

Re:Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?

[camperdave]

Well, maybe not a nuke. But how about a large rubberized canvas funnel connected to a hose to the surface?

Oh, and why don't oil rigs have a large containment boom around them in the first place?