During the visit, Prof. Dr. Jochem Marotzke presented the work on high-resolution Earth system models of the future and the possibilities that result for climate science but also for applications.
The WarmWorld project, which is supported by the BMBF with considerable funds, is leading the way here. The goal of this project is to convert the ICON model, which was jointly developed by the MPI-M and German Meteorological Service (DWD), into an “exascale-ready” model system using state-of-the-art programming methods. This model system will allow Earth system modeling with resolutions of a few kilometers, is scalable, and makes efficient use of supercomputers at the “exascale” level. This high resolution will allow even mesoscale physical processes to be computed directly using physical equations of fluid dynamics, instead of being derived from empirical approximations, as has been done in the past. WarmWorld thus creates synergies between theoretical and applied climate science and technological development for both better climate projections and improved studies of the effects of global climate change on our regional weather. Prof. Marotzke: “We know that anthropogenic global warming is happening and will continue to intensify for the time being. It is, however, so far still largely unclear what this means for the weather in our region, especially how extreme weather events will change in the future. These are precisely the issues we can now finally address with our new model and the new supercomputers.”
The minister then visited the new high-performance computer for German climate research “Levante” at the neighboring DKRZ
Contact:
Dr. Annette Kirk
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Communications
Email: annette.kirk@mpimet.mpg.de
Jana Meyer
German Climate Computing Center
Press and Public Relations
Email: jana.meyer@dkrz.de