The climate is subject to complex processes. In order to understand them better, researchers rely on supercomputers. A new-generation supercomputer is now being inaugurated in Hamburg – it easily outshines its predecessor. The long-term goal: a digital twin of the earth.
The new supercomputer in Hamburg manages 14 trillion calculation steps per second. Its main memory is more than 800 terabytes, as much as 100,000 laptops. With this computing power, researchers want nothing less than to predict future climate processes as accurately as possible. “Levante” is the name of the new supercomputer at the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) in Hamburg, which has now been officially inaugurated.
“Levante” is also the only supercomputer in Germany used solely for climate research. It is provided by Atos and has four times the computing power of its predecessor. “If we want to slow down and stop climate change, we have to understand the climate better overall,” said Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, according to the statement on the inauguration of the computing colossus.
With the new high-performance computer, “even more comprehensive, higher-resolution and thus better climate projections will be possible in the future,” says Stark-Watzinger. Hamburg Senator for Science Katharina Fegebank spoke of a “real game changer”. “In order to be able to react to the challenges of climate change and to develop solutions, we have to understand the climate system in all its complexity.”
The German climate data center now has “the latest generation of computer and storage systems,” said DKRZ Managing Director Thomas Ludwig. “It takes us back to the front ranks of the world’s fastest supercomputers, and even surpasses its predecessor in terms of energy efficiency.” For example, the waste heat from the new supercomputer is used to heat laboratories in the neighboring university building. With one of the largest storage systems in the world, researchers are also able to preserve simulation results over the long term and make them accessible worldwide, added Ludwig.
“Levante seizes the enormous opportunities arising from new technologies such as high-performance computing systems,” said Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society, which is involved in the 45 million euro project. The long-term goal is to create a “digital twin of the earth” in order to better understand the weather and climate and to be able to predict more precisely. And that on a global, but also local level. “Levante is a first important milestone on the way to opening up these new perspectives.”
The German Climate Computing Center gives German climate research access to special high-performance computing and data storage systems that are specially tailored to the work processes in climate modelling. The DKRZ also supports researchers in optimizing the models and in evaluating, visualizing and publishing the extensive climate data.