An Antarctic Odyssey in weather forecasting
An Antarctic Odyssey in weather forecasting
February 21, 2007: Crossing a number of different horizons, the Tasmanian Partnership for Advance Computing has opened up a distributed data reservoir suitable not only for weather forecasting in the ocean, but a new look at the evidence of Climate Change.
This year’s Noble peace prize was not only shared between Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change, but also the thousands of scientists across the globe who have participated in the IPCC’s findings and reports. In particular, nine scientists from Tasmania were honoured – especially their work modelling the affects of climate change in the ocean, findings that can only be achieved through a network of data-sets and some super-computing power.
Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow have depicted the impact of climate change, particularly the spectacular effects of a change in the ‘conveyer belt’ circulation of our waters. While it might not happen as fast as in the movies, this circulation is of particular interest to oceanographers. To study it though, it’s not good enough to merely look at the ocean. New innovative instruments are needed, tools capable of taking snapshots for analysis as well as the means for researchers to share information.
More importantly, collaboration is needed. It’s not enough for one man, woman or team to work on a project of this nature, shared resources and swift access to data-set is required to actually bring ocean knowledge together and reap its benefits.
The new initiative from the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing (TPAC) has created a distributed data reservoir for the study of the ocean atmosphere. From Australia’s most Southern point, the team of scientists have created a digital image library of very large files and provided users with an interface to slice and dice data sets within the repository.
“Often researches are not asking specific questions,” says Nathan Bindoff, director of TPAC. “They often want to be able to integrate a number of different things in an ad hoc way. The consequences of this are that it can become fairly archaic. So the key is to be able to deliver it in a way that they can slice the data sets themselves.”
Bindoff, with affiliations to the CSIRO, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative and a lead author in the ocean chapter in the IPCC Fourth Assessment report researches his work as an oceanographer. “We analyse data,” he says. “Physical oceanography is about understanding how the ocean circulates, where ocean water comes from and moves. We try and describe this through large 3D circulations of the globe.”
Typically a scientist will want to explore and interact with a number of different data sets to piece the information together. It’s about integrating many different things in an ad hoc way. “The consequence is that it can be fairly anarchic,” says Bindoff. “The key is to be able to deliver the information in a way they can slice the data sets themselves.”
Typically a scientist will want to explore and interact with a number of different data sets to piece the information together. It’s about integrating many different things in an ad hoc way. “The consequence is that it can be fairly anarchic,” says Bindoff. “The key is to be able to deliver the information in a way they can slice the data sets themselves.”
“We’ve come out of the medieval period,” says Bindoff. “We now have observations of the global system, and we have a few new simulations being done.”
The data involved is not just a snapshot of ocean water, but also representative of changes in the ocean’s salinity, rainfall on the surface and in the case of where there has been less precipitation, these tools can trace where the ocean is becoming more salty.
“The ocean can be viewed as a big rain gauge,” says Bindoff. “We can track the water mass back to the ocean surfaces, track and thereby document changes in the hydrological cycle. It’s independent evidence of the changes already observed on land.”
Some of the evidence indicating what’s changed on the land can be viewed in the land has already been found. “You can already see the ocean is getting more acidic as we pump more C02 into the atmosphere. It’s gone up by .1 PH unit, it’s enough to make a difference,” says Bindoff.
Other changes can also be seen in the levels of oxygen in the ocean, Bindoff puts this down to a “reduced exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean itself.” Ultimately this is evidence that the ocean is slower to actually take up what’s going on in the atmosphere.
Obviously, with so much available in the repository, it’s the metadata of descriptive information that’s key to its usefulness. “It’s much more detailed than metadata, you can actually read the file, you can point your code at it. It is high-level information about files stores,” says Bindoff.
Storing and exchanging the information requires some powerful equipment. At UTAS, Bindoff and his team use SGI resources including storage attached network and the SGI DMS product. The federation of open servers is actually layered on top of SGI equipment nationally. “The relationship with SGI has been good, they appear to have a genuine interest in climate and science,” says Bindoff. “The products have delivered and understood many of the needs we’ve had for the delivery of data.
The SGI relationship started back in 2000, after an escalation of the requirement for data. 5 years ago Bindoff says the requirement was 3 or 4 terabytes, back then they needed 40 terabytes, which has since been filled. “We’ve has so much data that we can’t afford to have separate back-up,” says Bindoff. “But we’re different from say a bank, we don’t have the same rigours and requirements for data archiving and independent back-up outside our data. It’s not an absolute requirement.”
The IPCC’s report released earlier this year and the commotion it ignited worldwide is representative of the successful model of data collaboration. The results of the report were based on 27 separate computer models, all dealing with an enormous amount of complex data. By gathering reports from thousands of scientists across the globe, the IPCC was able to put a detailed and evidenced backed report together on climate change.
Bindoff along with nine other Hobart based scientists was recently celebrated for his role in the IPCC report through the joint Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to Al Gore and the IPCC. Extending from the individuals recognised, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre along with the Australian Antarctic Division, Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies and CSIRO were also honoured with the award.
Seeing the ocean affected by the actions of humans must be devastating, but Bindoff remains optimistic about the future. “I believe there is a positive message if you look at the changes that are expected (in the IPCC report) then you can understand that if you do a bit of mitigation, change emission scenarios, we can avert some of this,” he says. “These reports are there so people can confront the changes that are anticipated to do with emissions scenarios. Over 30 years if you confront the changes you can adapt your behaviour.”