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Cracking the climate code: How the world’s fastest computers can help us adapt to environmental shifts
Supercomputers were critical in Singapore’s latest climate study, enabling researchers to run 1,000 years’ worth of simulations in just under three years
Hotter days are ahead for Singapore, with temperatures projected to exceed 35 deg C by end-century, notes the National Climate Change Study, released on Jan 5.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Jeremy Theseira, Content STudio
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A “hole” in the sky changed Dr Aurel Moise’s life.
The 61-year-old climate researcher has spent the past three decades unravelling the complexities of our climate. Why? He traces the starting point to a pivotal university lecture that shed light on the earth’s protective shield – the ozone layer.
“(My lecturer) was one of the key people who discovered the ozone hole in the 1980s. What was behind it, how it was impacting humans, and what needed to be done to fix this,” says the naturalised Australian of German descent, who is now based in Singapore.
The research of his university lecturer had a profound impact on mankind’s future – and that of Dr Moise (above).
It contributed to the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, an international treaty signed by 197 countries to regulate the production and use of ozone-depleting substances.
And it inspired Dr Moise, who has a master’s in physics and a doctorate in atmospheric science, to dedicate his career to furthering climate research. His mission? To help the public better understand and relate with climate issues.
Before joining the Centre for Climate Research Singapore in 2019, Dr Aurel Moise (left) spent 25 years working on and leading climate change research and climate projection projects with Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.
PHOTO: CENTRE FOR CLIMATE RESEARCH SINGAPORE
He is now a deputy director at the Centre for Climate Research Singapore, a research arm under the Meteorological Service Singapore. His latest achievement: Playing a crucial role in Singapore’s third National Climate Change Study (V3) that was released last Friday.
The first and second editions were released in 2013 and 2015 respectively.
Guided by the Geneva-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report released last March, the four-year-long V3 study provides climate projections that are more detailed and accurate to Singapore and South-east Asia.
The key findings for Singapore – based on three climate change scenarios derived by the IPCC – include a rise in annual mean temperatures and sea level, higher rainfall and longer, more frequent dry spells by the end of the century.
Dr Moise shares that the key to this study is to “help policy and adaptation planners make the best decisions on the most detailed science available”.
Our changing climate
- What will our climate look like by the end of the century? Higher temperatures, more extreme rainfall, longer dry spells and a rise in sea level are some key findings from Singapore’s third national climate change study.
- Some Singaporeans are already feeling the heat, more so than others. Last month, a study that mapped temperatures across Singapore revealed that Telok Ayer and Amoy streets are among the hottest spots in the country.
Powering climate projections
What did it take to run such a comprehensive study? “Hardcore science and a tremendous amount of computing processing power,” says Dr Moise, who led a team of 10 researchers in Singapore.
Downscaling from global climate models that also underpin IPCC assessments, he explains how the team first created a customised regional climate model or “virtual earth atmosphere” that runs within a supercomputer – a powerful computer that can run complex processes with speed and efficiency.
For Dr Aurel Moise and his team, supercomputers are a vital tool to run complex climate models, store large amounts of data, and effectively crunch the data to produce actionable insights.
PHOTO: CENTRE FOR CLIMATE RESEARCH SINGAPORE
It then uses historical atmospheric data – such as temperature, rainfall, wind and pressure – to validate the model and produce climate simulations and projections at high resolution, or distances ranging from 2km to 8km. This is more accurate than the broader resolution of IPCC’s global climate model, which has projections ranging from 75km to 200km.
As the virtual atmosphere within the model moves forward in time, new data is recalculated in 10-minute intervals, while old data is saved and stored on the system. Every second, the supercomputer processes terabytes of data, generating eight petabytes (8,000 terabytes) of data over the course of the study – equivalent to about 80,000 high-definition movies.
Dr Moise adds: “Running a virtual atmosphere is a very complex process, and you need different processing units to run multiple processes simultaneously.”
Using a personal computer as a reference, he explains: “Every computer has one central processing unit (CPU) doing all the hard work, with a bit of memory (storage) with it.
“Now connect 50,000 of those into one big system where you can assign a specific number of CPUs to run different processes at the same time.”
This enabled the V3 research team to run a thousand years’ worth of simulations in just under three years. “That is the power of supercomputers,” says Dr Moise.
Building climate resilience
- By 2100, sea levels could rise to almost a metre based on the IPCC’s worst-case emissions scenario, and possibly even higher with extreme weather events. Here’s how Singapore is saving its shores from rising sea levels.
- Starting this year, land will be reclaimed off East Coast Park to create the Long Island, a land tract twice the size of Marina Bay to protect the area from a rise in sea levels.
A must-have infrastructure
Beyond climate projections, the V3 study also underscored the importance of supercomputing infrastructure in research applications, says Associate Professor Tan Tin Wee, chief executive of the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore.
With support from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and National Research Foundation, the NSCC was established in 2015 to develop and provide high-performance computing capabilities to universities, government agencies and industries. It provided its supercomputing resources to the V3 research team.
NSCC’s Advanced Supercomputer for Petascale Innovation Research & Enterprise (Aspire) 2A has been operational since last July. Its predecessor, Aspire 1, was Singapore’s first national petascale supercomputer. It was set up in 2016.
PHOTO: NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTING CENTRE SINGAPORE
Prof Tan, 62, shares that supercomputers are increasingly crucial for the scientific community, offering immense processing power and storage capabilities compared with traditional computing methods.
He adds: “What would have taken decades or years to complete using conventional computing power takes only weeks, days or even hours to complete using a supercomputer, for the same amount of research data.
“These key advantages not only expedite research but also unlock new frontiers in knowledge, paving the way for transformative discoveries and innovations across myriad scientific disciplines.”
Supercomputers and you
In addition to the recent national climate change study, here are some other ways that NSCC’s supercomputing capabilities have impacted our lives and livelihoods.
- Your home
Research teams from A*Star and the Housing and Development Board used NSCC’s supercomputers in 2018 to simulate wind and sunlight patterns as part of sustainable urban town planning.
- Your health
Under Singapore’s National Precision Medicine programme, NSCC’s supercomputers were used between 2016 and 2019 in the first phase of creating the Singapore Reference Genome – a database of 10,000 Singaporean genomes, to better understand and diagnose genetic diseases. Efforts are currently under way to grow the database to 100,000 by 2025.
- Your safety
In its Covid-19 research, A*Star’s Institute of High Performance Computing used NSCC’s supercomputers in 2020 to study the droplets sprayed from a cough. These insights were crucial in the formulation of safe distancing measures during the pandemic.
This was produced in partnership with the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore
