The Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) developed under the Destination Earth initiative (DestinE) of the European Commission represents a significant advancement in creating detailed, operational, and interactive capabilities for climate projections with local granularity.
This project, led by the CSC – IT Center for Science, leverages the pioneering technology of LUMI, Europe’s first pre-exascale supercomputer, to perform novel multi-decadal global climate projections at high resolutions (5 to 10 km), which are critical for effective decision-making in climate adaptation strategies.
Climate DT’s approach significantly deviates from traditional multi-decadal climate projections, which were typically research-focused and updated every 7 to 10 years. The initiative now ensures annual updates of operational, quality-assured simulations. This change not only integrates the latest scientific and technological advances but also enhances the support for decision-making processes in climate science. By addressing “what-if” scenarios and policy impact questions through bespoke, cutting-edge simulations, Climate DT offers a proactive tool in understanding and planning for climate variability and change.
The technical backbone of Climate DT comprises next-generation global storm-resolving and eddy-rich models developed through a cooperative model development approach supported by European Horizon projects like nextGEMS and EERIE, as well as national projects such as WarmWorld in Germany and Gloria in Spain. These efforts include a strong collaboration among Europe’s leading climate and weather centers, supercomputing centers, and academic institutions. The models, including ICON, IFS-NEMO, and IFS-FESOM, utilize the robust computing capabilities of EuroHPC JU, enhancing the simulations’ accuracy and relevance to real-world applications.
Throughout its initial phase (December 2021 – June 2024), Climate DT has demonstrated significant achievements by deploying an end-to-end workflow on LUMI, which not only covers the full spectrum from km-scale climate simulations to impact-sector applications but also facilitates a co-production model of climate information tailored for sectors most impacted by climate change, like renewable energy and water management. This operational strategy marks a substantial improvement over traditional models where users were merely recipients of data. Instead, Climate DT enables a dynamic interaction where data is transformed into actionable climate change insights through a co-design approach involving quality assessment frameworks and sector-specific applications.
As part of its future direction (June 2024 – June 2026), the initiative aims to further consolidate and operationalize this system, ensuring that the next-generation storm- and eddy-resolving models are routinely updated and enhanced to support a HighResMIP-like protocol. The inclusion of AI and machine learning techniques is anticipated to revolutionize the user experience by providing more intuitive access to data and enhancing the models’ predictive capabilities. The forthcoming phase will also see an increased focus on developing applications for impact sectors, thus directly contributing to societal resilience against climate change.
Overall, Climate DT not only exemplifies European leadership in climate modeling and digital technology application but also sets a benchmark in integrating advanced computing resources, collaborative research, and innovative data management practices to address the urgent needs of climate adaptation and policy planning. This initiative effectively utilizes cutting-edge technology to provide detailed and actionable climate projections, thereby supporting a wide range of stakeholders in navigating the complexities of climate change.