Eight national labs, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, four universities and one private sector organization are joining in an ambitious climate modeling project to address complex questions by maximizing use of the Department of Energy’s high performance computing (HPC) capabilities. The Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project will use HPC to develop and apply “the most complete climate and Earth system model.”
Over the next three years, the ACME research will address questions related to three climate change science drivers: the water cycle, biogeochemistry and cyrosphere systems. Named “grand challenge simulations,” these questions cannot yet be answered with current computing capabilities, but researchers will perform experiments to prepare for the modeling system that will be constructed on the HPC machines as soon as they become available.
Specifically, the questions the project seeks to answer in the short term are:
• How do the hydrological cycle and water resources interact with the climate system on local to global scales? How will more realistic portrayals of features important to the water cycle (resolution, clouds, aerosols, snowpack, river routing, land use) affect river flow and associated freshwater supplies at the watershed scale?
- How do carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles regulate climate system feedbacks, and how sensitive are these feedbacks to model structural uncertainty?
- How do rapid changes in cryospheric systems, or areas of the earth where water exists as ice or snow, interact with the climate system? Could a dynamical instability in the Antarctic Ice Sheet be triggered within the next 40 years?
- How do biogeochemical cycles interact with global climate change? How do carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles regulate climate system feedbacks, and how sensitive are these feedbacks to model structural uncertainty?
According to the project’s 10-year plan, ACME is the only national modeling project designed to address DOE science and mission needs, such as those identified in the DOE report, U.S Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather.