Data storage for Swedish climate modelling and contributions to international projects (S-CMIP)
Abstract
The central motivation for climate modelling is to describe the responses of the Earth’s non-linear climate system to changes in forcing and to understand its internal variability, uncertainty and related processes. Scientific progress in these areas and in the science of prediction and projection methods enables actionable information on climate change in the fields of climate change adaptation (adjustment to a new climate) and mitigation (control of greenhouse gas emissions vs effects). Mitigation science is especially important in the light of the short deadlines for actions to concerning the international Paris climate accord.
International climate simulations to address the above questions are coordinated under the framework of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project, phase 6 (CMIP6, Meehl et al. 2014), which is structured in more specific MIPs, such as a ScenarioMIP and land use MIP and others. CMIP6 provides data and resulting scientific publications to the UN International Panel on Climate Change IPCC. Standardized output data generated in S-CMIP will partly be uploaded to CMIPs data grid (Earth System Grid Federation, ESGF) accessible to the global climate research community for further analysis. The CMIP standards and infrastructure, such as the ESGF are increasingly used for projects beyond CMIP as well, which is boosting international across-model climate studies. CMIP5 led to more than 1000 peer-reviewed publications. A search on google scholar gives 8600 hits on “CMIP6” publications. Climate model simulations in S-CMIP during 2021 and 2022 will continue to address questions related to CMIP6, related MIPs and forthcoming phases of CMIP. The outcome of CMIP6 will be used for better support of scientific studies and national and international decisions on adaptation and mitigation questions.
S-CMIP will carry out calculations connected to research projects funded by EU-H2020, VR and Formas. These cover understanding and modeling of processes in the climate system, development of a new generation climate model version, exploration of the predictability and uncertainty of climate change, millennium and paleo time scale studies, emission pathways that avoid climate tipping points, the fate of emitted carbon in the climate system, the probability of climate extremes in the future, and consequences of climate change for Northern Europe and the Tibetan Plateau. All these projects are externally scientifically reviewed, are considered state of the art and are expected to generate publications by S-CMIP members, in addition to ample cross model publications by the international CMIP community.
The simulations performed within S-CMIP generate a substantial amount of data that needs to be stored, post-processed and eventually published. This requires access to an infrastructure consisting of large-scale storage connected to computing resources and an ESGF node, such as currently found at NSC.
