Pushing boundaries in climate and weather research with eScience (Wilco Hazeleger, E-Science Center, KNMI and Wageningen University)

Weather and climate research involves extensive use of modern digital technologies driven by scientific needs and technological advances. For instance, in order to intercompare station data and perform global analyses standardization is necessary. Buys Ballot was already championing this, and in the digital era, where disparate data is easily available and shared, this is more relevant than ever. Scientific and societal needs also drive more detailed numerical simulations of the Earth system.

Meteorological data is acquired at local scales and fine grained simulations are made that allow for simulating weather extremes. The field of weather and climate research does not stand on its own. There are many links to other domains, such as agriculture and energy research. Also, interactions between weather and climate and (bio)geochemical processes needs to be considered. This implies that a large variety of data sources are used and complex models are developed.

These developments are accompanied by technological developments. 'Big data' is evolving from a hype into a real issue where large volumes and a large variety of data is becoming available at increasing speeds such that it is nearly impossible to store and analyse  data after collection. Traditional weather and climate data are enriched with sensor data from many devices and combined with data from many other sources. Also, computational capabilities change. Cloud computing is omnipresent and the traditional high performance computer systems are replaced by heterogeneous systems, often because of energy efficiency considerations.

eScience is a newly developing field where the data and computer science, the e-infrastructure (the hardware) and the application in scientific domains come together. Learning from other domains, new opportunities can be identified. In this seminar I will discuss examples how eScience can push boundaries of weather and climate research. I will show how century-scale truly eddy resolving ocean and climate simulations are possible now using new heterogeneous hardware solutions.  I will show examples for weather simulations at street scale, making use of high resolution weather models and data, and I will show real time ensemble flood forecast applications.

* Prof. dr. Wilco Hazeleger is director of the Netherlands eScience Center, a center that connects digital technology with applications in scientific domains. He is also affiliated with KNMI and holds a chair in climate dynamics at Wageningen University.

* There is an ever increasing ambition of weather and climate scientists and a fast development of digital technologies, such as the use of big data and computer capabilities. This seminar will discuss some of the current and future developments.

* Climate and weather research has a wide interest in general. The use of digital technologies is generic. The overarching character of these technologies and the opportunities they offer could make this seminar interesting for a broad audience.