The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was established in 1960 to serve as a focus for research on atmospheric and related science problems and is recognized for its scientific contributions to our understanding of the earth system, including climate change, changes in atmospheric composition, Earth-Sun interactions, weather formation and forecasting, and the impacts of all of these components on human societies.

Aspen Systems provides custom solutions for both the Research Applications Program (RAP) and the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division (MMM) at NCAR. Both RAP and MMM have Aspen Systems Linux clusters, each running on dual Xeon^TM processors with high speed Myrinet interconnects and 1 TB of RAID. While the MMM cluster only has 40 nodes, the RAP cluster has 350 nodes and is still growing. The Linux cluster at RAP contains nodes that can hold 10 TB of data and the custom design of this cluster meets specific computational requirements using 1U to 4U rackmount technology.

As the principal division responsible for aviation weather projects for NCAR, RAP has been the recognized leader in aviation weather research and technology since 1980. RAP's scientists and engineers use the Aspen Systems cluster to conduct directed research and facilitate the transfer of technology relating to improved capabilities for detecting, warning and forecasting mesoscale weather phenomena relevant to the public and private sectors. Aspen Systems' cluster is involved in aviation weather hazard detection to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and presentation of weather information to better predict and warn of atmospheric hazards that significantly affect aviation commerce, and other specialized weather information services.

Aspen Systems' cluster continues to have an instrumental role in the development and implementation of RAP's Four-Dimensional Weather Systems and Technology (4DWX) system. The 4DWX is the product of seven years of R&D, sponsored mostly by the U. S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, and recently by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. While it was originally conceived to provide operational test conduct support for the meteorology units at the ATEC ranges, it has since been applied to support counter proliferation planning in Afghanistan and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) modeling during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

By taking advantage of the benefits of an Aspen Systems cluster, MMM seeks to understand and accurately represent mesoscale and microscale processes in models of weather and climate, to make advances in theories of convective systems, in the predictability of weather systems including precipitation processes, the development and structure of turbulence, and boundary layer processes. Research studies span a wide range of scales from microphysical processes to the role of clouds in climate. The MMM Division's primary focus for Aspen Systems' cluster is on understanding atmospheric phenomena on spatial scales ranging from micrometers to megameters and time scales from seconds to a few days.