Supercomputing Elevates Accuracy of High-Stakes Predictions

Reducing uncertainty

With each new supercomputer deployed on campus during the past 10 years — from TACC’s Lonestar to Ranger, and soon Stampede — university researchers have seen enormous leaps in performance.

Professor Clint Dawson, a professor in ICES and the Cockrell School’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, for example, uses supercomputers to predict storm surge from hurricanes. Models such as Dawson’s were viewed with a certain amount of skepticism pre-Katrina, but now Texas’ emergency managers rely on them heavily to plan coastal evacuations.

Similarly, Thomas Hughes, a professor in ICES and the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, uses supercomputers to develop blood flow models that are helping guide best practices for cardiologists.

These professors are working to characterize and reduce uncertainties in their models because they understand that, just as with Columbia, the stakes of their predictions are high.

“The fact is, for something like [Columbia], you’ve got to give information that’s analytical to a decision-maker but you’ve got to quantify it. Are you 90 percent sure, 50 percent or 10 percent sure?” Hughes said. “Because when all is said and done, someone still has to call the shots based on the numbers.”