Scientists are gearing up to begin production runs on the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center's newest computer, a Cray X1. The system, which was accepted by the center last week, is a 128-processor vector processing computer called Klondike and the sixth of its kind to be installed at a supercomputing facility. Pioneer users of Klondike from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), are already optimizing a coupled ice-ocean model to run on the system. "The speed of this new computer is allowing us to plan a project of a magnitude that we would not have attempted on other systems," said Wieslaw Maslowski of NPS. "The speed-ups on the tests we've run suggest a performance of one hundred times better than what we were seeing on previous Cray computers." The researchers will be using Klondike to run a pan arctic, eddy resolving coupled ice-ocean model of the last fifty years forced with recently released atmospheric reanalysis data for 1957 to the present from the European Centre of Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF, Era-40). The model will provide important insights into the operation of the Arctic Ocean system, including its variability and recent decreases in the ice cover and thickness that have been demonstrated through satellite and submarine data. Understanding of future changes in the arctic region may become critical from both commercial and defense perspectives. If warming in the arctic continues, there will be at least summer access to northern sea routes connecting the Pacific Ocean and Europe, an alternative route to the Panama Canal. "If this warming continues, the U.S. Navy may soon need to focus on the Arctic Ocean (after a break since the cold war) to meet operational requirements in this area related to search and rescue, and tactical- and defense-related activities," says Maslowski. "Realistic simulations of arctic environmental change will allow us to understand the history of the Northern Polar Region, predict scenarios of future change, as well as to investigate the limits of predictability." "This project is contributing to a topic that is significant to both the arctic and the world," said ARSC director Frank Williams. "We're pleased to be able to provide the tools that will make this level of scientific study possible."