22.02.2023

This new phase's main objective is to support the community to reach a higher readiness level regarding exascale supercomputing and knowledge transfer between the different Earth system modelling centres and teams across Europe. Co-funded by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) under the powers delegated by the European Commission (EC) with a total budget of 6,081,337.5€ (half of which is provided by the home countries of the partner institutions) within the scope of the Horizon Europe EU funding programme, this 3rd phase of ESiWACE will run from January 2023 until December 2026. ESiWACE3 is being led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) and is one out of 10 new Centres of Excellence in High Performance Computing. The Consortium is formed by 10 other European high-performance computing (HPC) or climate-related recognised institutions and 2 private companies.

Our main objectives

The project will focus on three main aims that are essential to prepare existing operational weather and climate prediction systems for the exascale era. The first goal is to transfer and establish knowledge and technology for efficient and scalable Earth System simulations across the community. Secondly, by providing toolboxes for high-resolution computational modelling via joint developments, this third phase seeks the closure of common technology knowledge gaps. And the third objective of the project is to serve as a sustainable community hub for training, communication, and dissemination of HPC for weather and climate modelling in Europe. 

Meeting the challenges

To address these challenges, ESiWACE3 will bring together the various approaches from the different modelling groups to transfer knowledge across the weather and climate domains. Moreover, ESiWACE3 seeks to generate synergies between the local efforts, to provide targeted support to modelling groups via customised high-performance computing services, and to provide training to educate the next generation of researchers.

The work packages

WP1 will primarily focus on providing support to increase the efficiency of weather and climate simulations on state-of-the-art computers. WP2 will design and develop community tools to close technology gaps for HPC. WP3 is going to tackle the data challenge of high-resolution weather and climate modelling by developing novel data layout concepts and recommendations for domain-specific data compression derived from community input. WP4 will support the broader community of weather and climate modelling in the use of state-of-the-art supercomputing via targeted services to enhance HPC applications within the community. WP5 will offer training and capacity-building activities, while WP6 will work toward building a well-connected and inclusive community for high-resolution Earth System modelling across the Earth system sciences and HPC. This work package aims at establishing connections and knowledge transfer between other existing European projects and initiatives (such as other EuroHPC-funded CoEs and related CSAs, Destination Earth, the ENES network, NextGEMS, WarmWorld, etc.) and at disseminating and exploiting the services catalogue developed in WP4. And finally, WP7 will work on providing effective technical, administrative, and contractual management to achieve the project objectives within the time and budget constraints at the highest quality level. WP7 will also establish and maintain internal communication within the consortium and an effective interaction with the EuroHPC JU and EC.

Expected results

One of the main expected results of this 3rd phase is a range of services delivered to the weather and climate simulation community with improved and more efficient codes reducing their carbon footprint. HPC centres running climate models through container solutions will improve knowledge and understanding of the Earth System. Also, an HCPW version will be released to the public, providing a meaningful benchmark for the evaluation of new architectures for systems. Several summer schools and hackathons will be organised (in collaboration with other projects) to better prepare young scientists working on Earth System Modelling. The ultimate publication and dissemination of the scientific results of ESiWACE3 will present the improved European community models and tools for weather and climate simulations.

We are ready. Long live to ESiWACE!

Partner institutions

The ESiWACE3 Consortium is made up of the following research institutions, HPC centres, and private companies:

ESiWACE3 is funded by the European Union. It has received funding from the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101093054.

Banner image credits

LUMI: CSC / Fade Creative (EuroHPC JU)
Marenostrum 5: BSC
Leonardo: CINECA / Fade Creative (EuroHPC JU)