GENIEfy: creating a Grid ENabled Integrated Earth system modelling framework for the community.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of East Anglia
Department Name: Environmental Sciences
Abstract
The GENIE project's aim is to build simplified and faster-running models of the Earth's climate system, and make them easier to use and more widely available to other people who want & need to use them. State-of-the-art climate models (such as the excellent Hadley Centre model) work on quite detailed scales in both space and time, and are consequently big and slow, and cannot be used to simulate more than a few centuries of climate on anything other than a super-computer, and even so may take months to give results. We aim to model the climate for many thousands of years, because the climate of the Earth has undergone major and dramatic climate changes (including ice ages) in the past, over periods of many thousands (and even millions) of years, and we need to understand these so that we can model future climate with more confidence. And we aim to do this using more widely available computers (including top-end PCs) so that more scientists who are not computer experts can explore their ideas. To build such models which run thousands of times faster, we have to work with coarser grids, giving us less detailed results, and also use simplified versions of the physical, chemical and biological processes which interact to control the climate. The price of this is that we expect less accurate results, but we can afford to do large numbers of runs to compare the results, and so find out how much simplification we can tolerate, and how accurate the answers are, which is almost impossible with the big models. In the first phase of GENIE we have successfully built a small family of such simplified models and used advanced computational methods to tune' them to real world data, and to attack difficult questions about their reliance on things that we do not know very well. We now aim to build on this; (1) to try to find out how much detail is really needed for various levels of accuracy; (2) to create links between our models of the climate and models of technological development and the economy; (3) to make our models more similar to the big mainstream models (and so make it easier to compare results with them); (4) to make them better and even faster; and (5) to make them much more easily & widely usable by people other than their creators. We shall do this by exploiting the advanced software and computing technology which makes powerful computer resources available over the internet.
Organisations
Publications
Annan J
(2010)
Efficient identification of ocean thermodynamics in a physical/biogeochemical ocean model with an iterative Importance Sampling method
in Ocean Modelling
Annan JD
(2007)
Efficient estimation and ensemble generation in climate modelling.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Archer D
(2009)
Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide
in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Armstrong C
(2008)
Coupling integrated Earth System Model components with BFG2
in Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience
Armstrong C
(2007)
NOAH: A CSP-based language for describing the behaviour of coupled models
in Software: Practice and Experience
Cao L
(2009)
The role of ocean transport in the uptake of anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub>
in Biogeosciences
Chikamoto M
(2008)
Response of deep-sea CaCO 3 sedimentation to Atlantic meridional overturning circulation shutdown
in Journal of Geophysical Research
Cox, Simon
(2006)
Proceedings of the UK E-science All Hands Meeting 18-21 September 2006
Cui Y
(2011)
Slow release of fossil carbon during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
in Nature Geoscience
Fairman M
(2009)
Earth system modelling with Windows Workflow Foundation
in Future Generation Computer Systems
Goodwin P
(2009)
Climate sensitivity to the carbon cycle modulated by past and future changes in ocean chemistry
in Nature Geoscience
Goodwin P
(2010)
Ocean-atmosphere partitioning of anthropogenic carbon dioxide on multimillennial timescales
in Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Hargreaves J
(2006)
Using ensemble prediction methods to examine regional climate variation under global warming scenarios
in Ocean Modelling
Hoffmann D
(2010)
Towards radiocarbon calibration beyond 28ka using speleothems from the Bahamas
in Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Holden P
(2010)
Interhemispheric coupling, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and warm Antarctic interglacials
in Climate of the Past
Holden P
(2009)
A probabilistic calibration of climate sensitivity and terrestrial carbon change in GENIE-1
in Climate Dynamics
Holden P
(2010)
Dimensionally reduced emulation of an AOGCM for application to integrated assessment modelling
in Geophysical Research Letters
Hughes C
(2009)
Seasonal variations in the concentrations of methyl and ethyl nitrate in a shallow freshwater lake
in Limnology and Oceanography
Lenton T
(2006)
Enhanced carbonate and silicate weathering accelerates recovery from fossil fuel CO 2 perturbations
in Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Lenton T
(2006)
Millennial timescale carbon cycle and climate change in an efficient Earth system model
in Climate Dynamics
Lenton T
(2006)
Climate Change to the End of the Millennium
in Climatic Change
Lenton TM
(2009)
Using GENIE to study a tipping point in the climate system.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Livina V
(2008)
A wavelet-coefficient score for comparison of two-dimensional climatic-data fields
in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Livina V
(2007)
A modified method for detecting incipient bifurcations in a dynamical system
in Geophysical Research Letters
| Description | We developed a flexible, modular Earth system modelling framework ('GENIE') and a set of tools for compiling, running and analysing the output of the model, using the Grid. GENIE was used to study long-term future climate change due to human activities and to study past climate changes. The computational efficiency of the model and the use of Grid computing allowed us to do massive ensemble studies with the model, including assessing the stability of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation and the likelihood of collapsing it under anthropogenic climate change. |
| Exploitation Route | The model is being used in teaching Earth system science and in research. |
| Sectors | Education,Environment |
| Description | We developed an Earth system modelling framework - GENIE - which is now being used in further research and education. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
| Sector | Education,Environment |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |