Oh, the irony!

Intel’s supercomputer, called the Encanto and ranking number 32 on the Green500 list, was called into service to forecast the spread of oil from the Gulf of Mexico. Consisting of 3,500 quad-core Xeon processors, the 28-cabinet, water-cooled system helped the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) predict the spread of undersea oil as it enters the Atlantic loop current, according to GreenTech Pasture’s Heather Clancy.

As you can see in the YouTube video below, the next six months will see the oil advance from BP’s spill in the Gulf region to the waters off the eastern seaboard. The data may not be super-accurate — calculating the interaction between oil and water is a challenge — but NCAR scientists are confident that the science is sound.

Disturbing, isn’t it?