THE ROLE OF COMPUTING IN CLIMATE SCIENCE - and why it is time to take a quantum leap forward!

by Mr Bob Bishop (ICES Foundation Geneva)

Friday 29 Jan 2010, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

IT Auditorium (CERN)

High Performance Computing is currently deployed in several centres for climate research, but not at the levels needed to achieve substantial success on a global basis, given the complexity of the problem. A quantum leap in capabilities will be necessary to handle next-generation climate models that integrate newly emerging sciences, high-resolution grids, and voluminous observational data from satellites and sophisticated ground devices. The presentation will discuss efforts to build an International Centre for Earth Simulation (ICES) that takes an holistic systems approach, and that has the competence and resources to achieve new insights in this new decade, and is capable to influence public policy wrt to weather, climate, environment and disaster risk reduction. Bio: Bob Bishop is President of the newly formed ICES Foundation, a Geneva-based organization whose mission is to build an International Centre for Earth Simulation. He brings to the job over 40 years global experience in scientific, technical and engineering computing, and the techniques of modelling, simulation and visualization. Prior to this, he spent the first 5 years of his career in the study of meteorology, and as a researcher in medical ultasonics and NMR (MRI). Bishop is a member of several advisory boards, including for EPFL's Blue Brain Project, UCLA's Laboratory for Neural Imaging (LONI), Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor, and National ICT Australia (NICTA). He is an elected member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW). Bishop earned his B.Sc (first class honours) at Adelaide University, his Masters at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (NYU), and received a D. Sc. (honoris causa) at the University of Queensland. In 2006, Dr. Bishop was awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal by NASA for his role in assisting the space shuttle fleet return to flight after the 2003 Columbia disaster, and for delivering the world's fastest production supercomputer in record time, dedicated to the accident reconstruction and analysis of the entire launch and flight details for STS-107.

Slides The_role_of_Computing_in_Climate_Science.pdf The_role_of_Computing_in_Climate_Science.ppt