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MILLENNIUM SIMULATIONS RECONSTRUCT AND PREDICT CLIMATE CHANGE USING GÉANT2 NETWORK
Published 25th November 2008
- State-of-the-art Earth System Model to be showcased at ICT Event
Researchers into climate change will be able to access simulations spanning the last millennium and into the future through a major new Earth Modelling initiative. The Millennium Simulations, a project carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, is using the high speed, pan-European GÉANT2 network to connect remote research sites to its central system and process and share results between project participants and the wider research community.
The Millennium Simulations apply a comprehensive Earth System Model to reproduce the climate evolution from 800 AD to present and to provide projections of future climate development using prescribed scenarios of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The simulations of the past climate use newly assembled reconstructions of natural forcing factors (including volcanic eruptions, changes in the Earth’s orbit and variation of solar irradiance). In addition, human activities, such as land-use-change and greenhouse gas emissions, are included.
The Earth System Model contains sub-models for atmosphere, ocean, land-surface, and ocean-biogeochemistry. For the first time, climate simulations are carried out with a model featuring an interactive carbon cycle. A highly sophisticated video-rendering machine at the German Climate Computing Centre is used to convert the resulting data into information for scientists to analyse. This data is collated by researchers across a number of sites, including Helsinki, Zürich and Wageningen, with the GÉANT2 network enabling fast, seamless sharing of information. Given the processing power needed to run the model, high performance computers, working in parallel need to be used, all linked through the GÉANT2 network.
The resulting simulations in the Millennium data library can be accessed by researchers worldwide through the World Data Centre for Climate, hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany. Modern rendering techniques and the power and geographical reach of the GÉANT2 network allow these large files to be quickly shared globally, allowing wider information distribution and sharing between scientists. This helps projects working on climate change as well as historians and geographers, to identify the factors that result in climate changes.
The project is being showcased on the GÉANT2 booth at the 2008 ICT Event (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/ict/2008/exhibition/call/index_en.htm) in Lyon, France, between 25 and 27 November 2008. The GÉANT2 network is operated by research networking organisation DANTE.
“Through the Millennium Simulations we will provide model results that are needed to explore the climate of the past and to better understand present and future climate variations. We will therefore help scientists and researchers around the world to collaborate in this fundamental research area and to foster the understanding needed for adaptation and mitigation of climate change,” said Reinhard Budich, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. “By working with the GÉANT2 network we can not only connect remote research sites and process data but also share our results with the global Earth Sciences community, widening understanding in this vital area.”
“Global collaboration is the only way of tackling the major challenge of climate change and the Millennium Simulations provide essential data needed by researchers and scientists across the world,” said Dai Davies, General Manager, DANTE. “This initiative is another example of the positive impact that GÉANT2 is having on important projects across the world. In addition to climate change, it is enabling high profile scientific research at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, through radio astronomy to telemedicine, history and music.”
The Millennium Simulations project is just one of the innovative research initiatives enabled by the pan-European GÉANT2 network, which has played a key role in shaping global research and education over the past four years. By connecting researchers, the network enables the best minds across Europe and the world to together pursue collaborative and ground-breaking research activities that were previously impossible or inefficient due to limited and poor quality data connections. Other leading projects that are benefiting from GÉANT2’s combination of capacity, geographical coverage and advanced technology include CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the EXPReS radio astronomy initiative, the Brazilian Telehealth Initiative and the New World Symphony Orchestra.