Erland Källén on supercomputers and climate research

Climate researchers with the help of supercomputers are making better predictions about humans are affeting the earth's climate. Thanks to a grant of 24.4 million kronor that will fund a super climate computer, researchers at Stockholm University, KTH and SMHI are now able to improve their research routines.

The grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in conjunction with SNIC (the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing) at the Swedish Research Council is a major resource for SU meterologists, intent on better understanding the documented changes in the earth's climate in recent years. 

"The grant meant we were able to buy a computer that has the same kind of capacity as Japan's climate computer Earth Simulator," says Erland Källén, professor at the Department of Meterology (MISU). "It's currently being installed and tested at the moment. It will shortly be available for production runs."

Researchers will be able to be more accurate in their research, striving to better understand the processes which regulate how the climate is affected by emissions from transporters, coal powerstations, industries and other activities we humans get up to.

"We now have access to a tenfold increase in computing resources," explains Professor Källén. "We can do experiments that were previously unthinkable; for instance, increasing the model details such that we can describe phenomena that we previously could not capture. Examples are cloud formation in subtropical regions and circulation changes in the Arctic area. The latter is important for improving our understanding of the reasons behind the massive summertime ice melt in recent years."

WIth the FN's most recent  climate report underlining the need for more accurate predictions about climate change, Stockholm University, together with its partners, Turbulence Researchers at KTH, seems ideally posed to make a significant contribution to better understanding climate change. As the FN report noted, the  the evidence for a major shift in the earth's climate is clear but that future predictions remain uncertain. This is partly because the actual processes by which predictions are made limit how well we can describe man's affect on the climate. 

See also Press release New computer calculates turbulence and tomorrow's climate www.su.se/english/about/press

Text and interview: Jon Buscall