For nearly four decades, state-of-the-art computers -- often referred to as "supercomputers" -- have been a central part of GFDL's effort to understand the earth's climate and weather. The laboratory's roots in supercomputing extend back to the 1950's, when Joe Smagorinsky, who later founded GFDL, worked with John von Neumann, Jule Charney, and others at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton to develop the world's first computer-based weather forecast model. Since its founding in 1955, GFDL has continued this effort and has been a leader in applying advanced computing to predict and simulate the behavior of the earth's atmosphere and oceans.

GFDL's recent efforts in supercomputing have been led by Bruce Ross and Lou Umscheid. They have sought to provide GFDL scientists with a cost-effective, balanced computing environment for addressing and solving some of the most difficult problems in climate and weather research. Even more importantly, GFDL aggressively recruits world-class scientific talent to ensure that a maximum scientific return is obtained from the Nation's investment in the laboratory's computing resources.

GFDL's supercomputers are kept busy around the clock, every day of the year, performing calculations for the computationally intensive climate and weather models that are at the heart of the laboratory's scientific mission. In response to the continuing demand for increased computer power by its scientists, GFDL has typically obtained a new state-of-the-art supercomputer every five to six years. Another measure of the critical role of computers in GFDL's research is the fact that approximately half of the laboratory's annual budget is allocated to computer and computer-related costs.

In the future, GFDL will continue to seek ways of exploiting new supercomputing technologies, such as highly parallel computer architectures, to maintain the laboratory's position on the leading edge of scientific computing.