Following the recommendations of the European climate research community (Euroclivar, November 1998), it is proposed to undertake a "PRogramme for Integrated earth System Modelling" as a pilot infrastructure project for the establish of climate research network. The workplan foresees (i) the creation of a European management structure for developing, co-ordinating and executing a long-term programme of European-wide, multi-institutional climate simulations; (ii) the development of a set of portable climate community models and associated diagnostic software under standardised coding conventions that can be accessed by all European scientists; (iii) the execution of a first suite of joint simulations. PRISM will greatly enhance the efficiency of earth system modelling in Europe and it will pave the way for the establishment of a European Climate Computing Facility. The expected product will be a flexible, efficient, portable, and user friendly community infrastructure for earth system modelling and climate prediction.

---

C3.1 The European dimension of the problem

PRISM will greatly increase the efficiency of climate research in Europe by mobilising the considerable expertise of scientists who in the past have not had direct access to state-of-the-art climate/Earth system models and the related diagnostic/visualisation software. The availability of reliable European climate computations is an essential prerequisite for an effective European climate policy. At present, European climate policy is entirely dependent on climate simulations carried out at various national climate research centres, which may not necessarily reflect European priorities.

 

The science of climate changes is of an unprecedented level of complexity in terms of human resources, super computer requirements and the need for observational data. It will be clearly impossible to solve the scientific problems related to climate change through a single national approach. Fortunately, Europe has sufficient expertise in all relevant fields, but a pooling of expertise and resources will be essential. PRISM will provide a unique opportunity to create the technical framework needed for implementing a strong scientific European collaboration. PRISM will also provide a series of well-documented user-friendly community tools that will be available to the entire community in Europe for further climate studies. By creating a strong European basis for further research development, Europe will remain competitive and maintain its climate research at the highest level.

In the last years, Europe has played a leading role in climate research, as highlighted, for example, by the European contributions to the IPCC Assessment Reports. However, many recent initiatives elsewhere in the world openly challenge this leadership. The proposed Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative and other related projects in the United States of America (including the attempts by DOE, NASA and NCAR to form a consortium for climate modelling) as well as the two large Japanese initiatives, the "Earth Simulator" and the "Frontier Research System for Global Change" have been designed to challenge the role played by European scientists in the process of decision-making. EU support is therefore essential if Europe wants to keep its influence on the international scene and continue to influence international decisions taken to reduce climate change.

C3.3 Contribution to EU policy

Europe is taking the lead on implementing policies to reduce emissions of radiatively important compounds. The present project will provide community modelling tools that are needed to improve the scientific basis for the implementation of this policy. This improved basis will be essential for the successful implementation of the FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol and for the negotiations in the post Kyoto process. Current evidence shows that Europe is vulnerable to the anticipated anthropogenic climate change in several respects. Much better global and regional predictions are required to guide long term planning. If emissions policies are to be put in place, then we need to know what reductions are needed to produce a required effect, and in the longer term we need confirmation that policies are being effective. As the implications of such policies become more apparent, a cost benefit analysis of emission controls will be necessary, both to carry policies within Europe, and persuading the rest of the world to follow.

The PRISM project is also in line with the recent e-Europe Action Plan approved in June, 2000 by the European Council (Head of States and Government). This plan, with the objective to bring Europe "on line", calls for an "open method" of co-ordination based on the benchmarking of national initiatives, combined with several Commission’s recent initiatives. One of these initiatives is the e-Science project. The purpose of e-Science is to take advantage of the rapid developments in information and communication technologies to improve scientific practices. Specifically, the Commission’s initiative notes that the information revolution marks a new phase in the history of research, specifically in the formation and structuring of the research communities and more importantly, in the way science is conducted. Due to developments in information technologies, scientific collaboration is accelerating and widening in scope, researchers are integrated in communities more rapidly than ever, virtual collaboratories are emerging (to link geographically dispersed researchers), remote databases can be shared and accessed in seconds from around the world, scientific instruments are being manipulated remotely. Information technologies will, according to the Commission, make it possible to answer fundamental scientific questions in many different fields including the environment. At the workshop hosted by the European Commission in Brussels (July 11, 2000), climate and Earth system Modelling was identified as one of the disciplines that would greatly benefit from the e-Science initiative.

 

---

A better understanding of the interactions between climate change and the socio-economic system, including the problems of structural unemployment, globalisation and other aspects of rapid economic and technological change, is essential for the achievement of the Community social objectives. These problems can be addressed within the framework of a European research programme only if Europe has access to modern Earth system modelling systems, as planned in PRISM. The proposed project will therefore directly contribute to the European social objectives.

European society is affected by climate variations on a wide range of time scales. Improved climate modelling is also essential to assess the likely range of future climate changes, and the potential impact on Europe of human-induced climate perturbations. Natural, as well as anthropogenical induced climate variations have an impact on the quality of life, health and safety.

Anthropogenic climate change is likely to affect mean conditions as well as climate extremes, such as temperature, precipitation, sea level, storminess, etc. Natural climate variations, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the El Niño Southern Oscillation Phenomenon (ENSO) are also affecting European climate conditions on multiple time scales. Climate prediction will help anticipate the effects of these changes so that measures can be taken in time to safeguard and improve safety, health and the quality of life.

C4.2 Employment

As already indicated, climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, also has economic implications and may therefore affect employment. There are two mechanisms. First of all, improved climate seasonal and possibly decadal prediction will be used for economic planning. Secondly, the post-Kyoto process can have a significant influence on the world economy. A reduction of CO₂ emissions can be achieved by replacing current technology with more energy-efficient technology and by switching to low-carbon fossil fuels. In the longer term, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass technologies could meet part of the worlds’ energy demand. These and other developments aimed at mitigation and reduction of global change may have stimulating effects and create jobs. In fact, there are indications that emission reductions may have a positive effect on economy and employment.

C4.3 Preserving the environment

Global change is a serious threat to the environment. PRISM will provide the facility that can be used to further quantify the impact of climate change on the environment. Climate modelling results will be also essential for the implementation of the EU environmental policy, in particular for implementation of the commitments arising from the post-Kyoto process. Climate research will eventually indicate what reductions are needed to produce a given amelioration of change. In the longer term, it will verify whether policies are being effective.

 

---

In view of the large number of partners and the large number of workpackages involved, we are proposing a rather centralised management structure that should facilitate the production of deliverables with a minimum of "bureaucracy" and of business meetings. This organisational structure is designed to ensure that the 4 main tasks (model definition, development of model components, assembling of the model system and PRISM system demonstration) be completed in sequence without delay. In addition, mechanisms are planned to open the structure to participants other than the PRISM partners. The following management structure is proposed:

1. Project Coordinator

The Project Coordinator is responsible for overall coordination of the project, and reports to the European Commission. He is assisted by the co-coordinator and by a Project Director.

2. Project Director

The project Director will monitor progress by the different groups involved, facilitate communication between the different groups (including the publication of a periodic "newsletter"), organise the scheduled meetings of the project as well as small working sessions between groups when necessary. The Director will also regularly communicate with the European Commission in Brussels and help the coordinator and co-coordinator preparing recommendations for future and closer cooperation between climate modelling groups in Europe.

3. Lead contractors

The Lead Contractors are responsible for the execution of one or more work packages

4. Steering Group

A Steering Group with one representative of each partner plus an EC representative will be established. This group will review planning and progress, give guidance to the coordinator and co-coordinator, and approve (by majority) the final specification of the PRISM demonstration project and the corresponding allocation of computer resources. The Steering Group will meet twice a year.

5. Executive

An Executive Group, which will meet as frequently as needed will closely follow the execution of the project and provide advice to the coordinator. It consists of the coordinator, the co-coordinator and three partners to be elected by the Steering Group.

6. External Advisory Group

An External Advisory Group will be created to represent the user community, and as well as special interest groups. It provides a mechanism to open the PRISM project to groups not included in the present proposal but interested by the PRISM activities. The members of the External Advisory Group will be appointed by the Steering Group and invited to attend part or all of the Steering Group meetings.

7. Special subgroups

Several special (ad hoc) working subgroups will be established, when necessary. For example, we discussed the establishment of a software engineering group which would prepare reports on technical aspects to be examined by the Steering Group.

A schematic representation of the management structure is shown on the next page.

 

---

Fig 1: PRISM Management Structure

 

 

 

The overall co-ordination of the various tasks involved will be provided by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (G. P. Brasseur, coordinator) in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI, G. Komen, co-cordinator). An important task of the coordinators will be to maintain the communication between the partners, and between PRISM and the entire European climate community. Another key task will be to develop a strong relation with similar modelling efforts and similar initiatives in the US, Japan and elsewhere. PRISM will also contribute to the planning of European efforts such as those proposed in the former Euroclivar project.

In order to plan and review progress, several meetings will be scheduled. At the start of the project a short kick-off meeting will be held to review the workplan and relevant developments since the proposal was written. Then, the so-called First Project Meeting (at the end of the Definition phase on month 6) will provide the opportunity to complete the specification of the PRISM system and to start the technical developments. The User Consultation Meeting (at the end of the Development phase on month 18) will be open to the broad climate community. The major purpose will be to generate users’ interest and envisage the participation of modelling groups not included in the PRISM proposal. Other interesting modelling efforts could be incorporated in community models, and the authors of these codes should be invited to collaborate. This meeting should also review scientific progress by PRISM partners. The Second Project Meeting (at the end of the Assembly phase on month 24) will review progress with technical development, approve the plan for the demonstration phase, and provide initial recommendations for PRISM follow-up activities. Finally, the Final Project Meeting (at the end of the Demonstration Phase on month 36) will be devoted to a discussion of the final report (including a discussion of recommendations made by PRISM for future co-ordination of European climate modelling efforts). It will review the final deliverables and establish mechanisms by which modelling and analysis tools remain available to the community after completion of the PRISM project.

---

The participants are affiliated with universities or other scientific institutions as well as with private industry. The representatives of scientific groups have a wide expertise in meteorology and climate research. They have developed and used climate models that are recognised among the best models currently available in the world. Major climate research centres which host major supercomputer centres or have access to such facilities (Hadley Centre, Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, CNRS, ECMWF) are included in the project together with several national Meteorological services (Meteo-France, KNMI, DMI, SMHI). Computer capabilities that will be used for PRISM activities (e.g., model development and demonstration runs) are listed in Table 2. (situation in September, 2000) Institutions involved in code development and testing as well as in modelling service functions (MPI-MAD, CERFACS, ETH Zurich, PIK) will play a central role in this project. Universities (UREADMY, UCL-ASTR) as well as other research centres (MPI-BGC, PIK, ING) will contribute to the development of models and the analysis of the model results. Finally, the participation of several major industrial vendors (NEC, FECIT, SGI, and SUN) who provide different model architectures currently used by European climate modelling centres will provide a major thrust for the optimisation and portability of community models. They will also contribute to the development of diagnostic and visualisation tools.

Table 2: Computer Capability in Europe available for Proposed PRISM Activities

Different state-of-the-art atmospheric and ocean models will be made available to PRISM, and will have to be slightly adapted, so that they can be easily coupled to OASIS. The models to be provided are listed in Table 3a together with the name of the institution that supports these models. It is likely that the PRISM system will adopt a default configuration, but with the aid of the computer vendors, the coupler will be enhanced, so that the parallel and scalable PRISM coupler will run efficiently on different computer architectures

2a. System specification

1. Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie (MPG-IMET) [Co-ordinator of the Project]

 Short description of institution

The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) (http://www.mpimet.mpg.de) was founded in 1975 as an institute dedicated to fundamental climate research. It has been a leader in climate research and has contributed significantly to IPCC reports and to numerous areas such as global change simulations, climate change detection and attribution, prediction of natural climate and anthropogenic changes. Several global models of the atmosphere (including ECHAM) and of the ocean (including HOPE) have been developed by MPI-M and are widely distributed within the international community. The institute employs approximately 120 scientists in 3 departments.

The general scientific aim of the three sections (Atmospheric Processes, Climate Modelling, Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Dynamics) of the Max-Planck-Institute of Meteorology is (1) the examination, understanding and modelling of climate processes with their variability and interactions, and (2) the development of methods to assess climate predictability. MPI-M develops and uses state-of-the-art global climate models for single components of the climate system (atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, land surface, biosphere) as well as coupled models for the interactions between these components. It acts as the focal point of climate research in Germany since 25 years. Models describing the chemistry of the upper and lower atmosphere have recently been coupled to the atmospheric general circulation models. A long-term goal of MPI-M is to develop a comprehensive Earth system model in which the physical aspects of the climate system are coupled with bio-geochemical cycles.

MPI-M has also a long experience in the statistical analysis of the coupled climate system including integrated assessment studies and environment/socio-economic interactions. It has made major contributions to the analysis of a human influence on climate in detection and attribution studies. Since January 2000 the Model and Data Group (MAD, formerly the Model Application Group at the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ)) is managed by MPI but as an independent entity and a national support facility in Germany. This group provides support to run extended integrations with climate models, and archives and distributes the results.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Guy P. Brasseur is currently a Director of the MPI-M, where he leads the Department of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Dynamics. He is the former Director (1990-1999) of the Atmospheric Chemistry Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, USA, and the current chair of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project (IGAC) of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). He is lecturer at the Free University of Brussels, and President-elect of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). His interests focus on the chemistry and dynamics of the middle atmosphere, the photochemistry of the troposphere, solar-terrestrial relations and chemistry-climate interactions. Brasseur has developed a hierarchy of chemical transport models, including models describing ozone depletion in the stratosphere. He has recently led the development of a community model (MOZART) describing the behaviour of chemical compounds in the global atmosphere. Brasseur has participated in several international assessments, including WMO/UNEP ozone assessments and IPCC reports. He is author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and of several scientific textbooks.

Dr. Lennart Bengtsson is Director of the MPI-M where he leads the Department of Climate Modelling. He has a long experience in the climate and weather modelling both at MPI-M and at ECMWF where he served as Director in the 1980s. He has been actively involved in international meteorology for several decades and took active part in launching the CLIVAR and GEWEX programmes. He is presently holding the chair of ESAC (ESA -Earth Science Advisory Committee) and WGCM (JSC/CLIVAR - Working Group of Coupled Modelling) and was chairman of the BALTEX Steering Group until recently. He is member of several advisory committees in Europe and USA. He is a (co-)author of some 170 scientific publications and textbooks covering a broad area of weather and climate research including atmospheric modelling and data-assimilation. He has been involved in several EU-funded projects including SINDICATE, NEWBALTIC.

Dr. Erich Roeckner is a Senior Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, who has long-year experience in the development of atmospheric general circulation models and coupled models of the atmosphere and ocean. He is (co-)author of more than 100 scientific publications. His main scientific interests are modelling of climate and climate variability from seasonal to decadal time scales, cloud-radiation feedbacks and their role in determining climate sensitivity, and modelling the climate response to past and future anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Recent and current participations in EU-funded projects include SINDICATE, HIRETYCS, ERACC, EUROCS, SFINCS.

Dr. habil. Ernst Maier-Reimer is senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. His experience in physical modelling of ocean dynamics goes back to 1971 when he started with tidal computations. He started modelling of plankton dynamics in 1973. Since his affiliation at the MPI in 1978 he became involved in modelling of the general circulation of the Ocean. He authored the models LSG, HOPE, and C-HOPE that are used at MPI. In 1983 he started to model the oceanic cycle of carbon and related tracers. He authored the HAMOCC (Hamburg model of ocean carbon cycle) which describes the link between major nutrient cycles with the carbonate chemistry of seawater and the early diagenis in the sediment.

 Selected Publications

Bengtsson, L., E. Roeckner, and M. Stendel, 1999: Why is the global warming proceeding much slower than expected J. Geophys. Res., 104, 3865-3876.

Brasseur, G. P., R. A. Cox, D. Hauglustaine, I. Isaksen, J. Lelieveld, D. H. Lister, R. Sausen, U. Schumann, A. Wahner, and P. Wiesen, 1998: European scientific assessment of the atmospheric effects of aircraft emissions. Atmos. Environ., 32, 2327-2422.

Brasseur, G. P., D. A. Hauglustaine, S. Walters, P. J. Rasch, J.-F. Müller, C. Granier, and X.-X. Tie, 1998: MOZART, a global chemical-transport model for ozone and related chemical tracers, 1. Model description. J. Geophys. Res., 103, 28,265-28,289.

Christoph, M., U. Ulbrich, J.M. Oberhuber and E. Roeckner, 2000: The role of ocean dynamics for low-frequency fluctuations of the NAO in a coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM. J. Climate, 13, 2536-2549.

Roeckner, E., L. Bengtsson, J. Feichter, J. Lelieveld, and H. Rodhe, 1999: Transient climate change simulations with a coupled atmosphere-ocean GCM including the tropospheric sulfur cycle. J. Climate, 12, 3004-3032.

Timmermann, A., J. Oberhuber, A. Bacher, M. Esch, M. Latif, and E. Roeckner, 1999: Increased El Niño frequency in a climate model forced by future greenhouse warming. Nature, 398, 694-697.

2. KNMI Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) [Co-Coordinator of the Project]

 Short description of institution

As a national Meteorological Service and research institute KNMI (http://www.knmi.nl) has 145 years of experience in atmospheric and oceanic science. KNMI has a wealth of historic climate observations (including ships observations) and contributes to several climate monitoring programmes. Dedicated process studies are carried out from Meetpost Noordwijk in the southern North Sea and from a 213-m tower near Cabauw. The institute's Climate Research Department is actively engaged in many CLIVAR-related topics. A general research objective is to contribute to the understanding of natural climate variability, the prediction of climate and the assessment of anthropogenic climate change. The Climate Research Department consists of a Climate Policy Unit and 5 Research Divisions: Atmospheric Research, Climate Analysis, Predictability Research, Oceanographic Research and Atmospheric Composition Research. KNMI contributes actively to the work of the World Meteorological Organisation. It represents the Netherlands in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. KNMI participated in numerous EU funded RTD projects. In the period 1996 - 1998 KNMI's Climate Research Department published over 140 papers in refereed scientific journals. KNMI collaborates with the University of Utrecht and several other groups in the Netherlands Centre for Climate Research (CKO).

 

 Key persons

Prof. Gerbrand Komen (co-coordinator, wp1) is Head of the Oceanographic Research Division of KNMI, and professor in Climate Dynamics at the University of Utrecht. He is an expert in air/sea interaction and ocean waves. He published over 80 papers; he is (co-)author of several books on ocean waves. As chairman of the Wave Modelling (WAM) group he guided, jointly with Klaus Hasselmann, the successful development and implementation of a third generation ocean wave model. He participated in several EU projects and in the ECMWF reanalysis activities. From 1994 until 1997 he was Netherlands focal point for IPCC Working Group I. As coordinator of Euroclivar, a concerted action under the Fourth Framework Programme, he chaired the Euroclivar committee, helped organize 8 European workshops in the field of climate variability and climate change and he edited the Euroclivar recommendations for Climate Variability and Predictability Research in Europe. In PRISM Gerbrand Komen will be co-responsible for the general co-ordination of PRISM, jointly with Guy Brasseur (wp1).

Dr. Camiel Severijns (wp4a, wp5) works in the CKO model support group. He is experienced in human-computer interaction and interactive and distributed software systems. He has worked in large software projects at a major software vendor. In PRISM, Camiel Severijns will participate in the development of diagnostics and visualisation tools (wp4a) and the demonstration experiments (wp5).

Prof. Hennie Kelder (wp3c, wp5) is Head of the Atmospheric Composition Research Division and professor at the Eindhoven Technical University and will contribute to the atmospheric chemistry module. He has over 25 years experience in atmospheric research and is chairman of the SCIAMACHY validation and interpretation group, and a member of the SCIAMACHY science advisory group. Hennie Kelder was the co-ordinator of the EU-funded SODA project and participant in the EC-project Data Assimilation in Readness for Envisat. Presently he coordinates the EU-project GOA.

Dr. Peter van Velthoven (wp3c, wp4a, wp5) is the leader of the working group Atmospheric Compositions Modelling. He has set up and co-ordinates the use of ECMWF re-analysis data for chemistry-transport modelling. He has participated in many past and current EU-projects, such as EULINOX, SINDICATE, and TRADE-OFF.

Dr. Hans Cuijpers works in the CKO model support group. He has many years of experience in developing meteorological parameterisations. He has been responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the code of a chemistry-climate model across various computer platforms. He has also developed and maintained climate model data visualisation tools. He will participate in interfacing the chemistry modules (wp3c), development of diagnostics and visualisation tools (wp4a) and the demonstration experiments (wp5).

 Selected Publications

D.L.T. Anderson, L. Bengtsson, P. Delecluse, J.C. Duplessy, T. Fichefet, S. Joussaume, J. Jouzel, G. Komen, M. Latif, L. Laursen, H. Le Treut, J. Mitchell, A. Navarra, T. Palmer, S. Planton, A. Ruiz de Elvira, F. Schott, J. Slingo, J. Willebrand, 1998: Climate Variability and Predictabiliy Research in Europe, 1999-2004: Euroclivar Recommendations. KNMI, De Bilt, The Netherlands, xxiv+120pp.

Beersma, J., K. Rider, G. Komen, E. Kaas and V. Kharin, 1997: An analysis of extra-tropical storms in the North Atlantic region as simulated in a control and a 2 x CO₂ time-slice experiment with a high resolution atmospheric model. Tellus, 49A, 347-361.

Bonekamp, H., A. Sterl and G.J. Komen, 1999: Interannual variability in the Southern Ocean from an OGCM forced by ECMWF re-analysis fluxes. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 13.317-13.331.

Bouws, E., D. Jannink and G.J. Komen, 1996: On increasing wave height in the North Atlantic ocean. Bull. Meteor. Amer. Soc., 77, 2275-2277.

Cuijpers, J.W.M., and A.A.M. Holtslag, 1998: Impact of Skewness and Nonlocal effects on Scalar and Buoyancy Fluxes in Convective Boundary Layers. J. Atmos. Sci., 55, 151-162.

Eskes, H. J., A. J. M. Piters, P. F. Levelt, M. A. F. Allaart, and H. M. Kelder, 1999: Variational assimilation of total-column ozone satellite data in a 2D lat-lon tracer-transport model. J. Atmos. Sci., 56, 3560.

Jeuken, A.B.M., H.J. Eskes, P.F.J. van Velthoven, H. M. Kelder, and E.V. Hólm, 1999: Assimilation of total ozone satellite measurements in a three-dimensional tracer transport model. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 5551-5563.

Kelder, H., and J.P.F. Fortuin, 1996: Possible links between ozone and temperature profiles. Geophys. Res. Lett., 23, 1517-1520.

Komen, G.J., L. Cavaleri, M. Donelan, K. Hasselmann, S. Hasselmann and P.A.E.M. Janssen, 1994: Dynamics and Modelling of Ocean Waves. Cambridge University Press, 532p. (Second printing: 1996).

Van Velthoven, P.F.J., R. Sausen, C.E. Johnson, H. Kelder, I. Köhler, A.B. Kraus, R. Ramaroson, F.Rohrer, S.Stevenson, A. Strand, and W.M.F. Wauben, 1997: The passive transport of NO_x emissions from aircraft studied with a hierarchy of models. Atmos. Environm., 31, 1783-1799.

3. Model and Data Group (MPI-MAD)

 Short description of institution

The Model and Data group was until the end of 1999 part of the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ). Since the beginning of the year 2000 group has become an independent group financed entirely by the German Ministry for Research (BMBF), but administratively attached to the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology (MPI).

MAD is responsible for the maintenance and documentation of the German climate models, the running of extended integrations, the archiving, data handling and the distribution of model output. The group advises scientists about the usage of climate models and the interpretation of the results. It hosts the IPCC - data distribution centre. It has a team of 6 permanent staff scientists, 3 scientists on contract and 6 programmers.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Ulrich Cubasch has been head of the Model Application Group at DKRZ resp. the model and Data Group at MPI since 1991. His main area of work is the development of quasi-operational models of the climate system variability and climate change studies with numerical models. He has been a lead and/or contributing author of the 1990, 1992 and 1995 IPCC reports on the "Scientific Assessment of Climate Change" and is now co-ordinating lead author of chapter 9 of the forthcoming third assessment report of IPCC. He is also a member of the IPCC task group on Climate Scenarios for Impact Assessment (TGCIA) and member of the national CODATA panel. He was co-ordinator of the 4th framework project SIDDACLICH (simulation, diagnosis and detection of climate change). In this project he will work for 12 person-months, mainly co-ordinating the efforts in WP3i and WP4b.

Dr. Stefanie Legutke has been a senior scientist in the Model and Data Group (resp. its DKRZ predecessor) for over six years. She has been in charge of developing the global coupled atmosphere ocean model using the CERFACS OASIS coupler. In this project she will be working for 12 person-months, mainly with WP3a and WP3i.

Two more scientists will be hired on a contract basis, and work part-time on PRISM.

 Selected Publications

Cubasch, U., G.C. Hegerl and J. Waszkewitz, 1996: Prediction, Detection and Regional Assessment of Anthropogenic Climate Change. Geophysica, 32, 77-96.

Hegerl, G.C., K. Hasselmann, U. Cubasch, J. F. B. Mitchell, E. Roeckner, R. Voss and J. Waszkewitz, 1997: Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change. Climate Dynamics, 13, 613-634.

Cubasch, U., G.C. Hegerl, R. Voss, J. Waszkewitz and T. C. Crowley, 1997: Simulation with an O-AGCM of the influence of variations of the solar constant on the global climate. Climate Dynamics, 13, 757-767.

Cubasch, U., M. Allen, P. Barthelet, M. Beniston, C. Bertrand, S. Brinkop, J.-Y. Caneill, J.-L. Dufresne, L. Fairhead, M.-A. Filiberti, J. Gregory, G. Hegerl, G. Hoffmann, T. Johns, G. Jones, C. Laurent, R. McDonald, J. Mitchell, D. Parker, J. Oberhuber, C. Poncin, R. Sausen, U. Schlese, P. Stott, L. Terray, S. Tett, H. leTreut, U. Ulbrich, S. Valcke, R. Voss, M. Wild and J.-P. van Ypersele, 1999: Summary Report of the Project Simulation, Diagnosis and Detection of the Anthropogenic Climate Change (SIDDACLICH) Contract No. ENV-CT95-0102, EU-Commission, DG XII, in press.

Legutke, S., and R. Voss, 1999: The Hamburg atmosphere-ocean coupled circulation model ECHO-G. DKRZ Rep. No. 18, Hamburg, Germany.

Legutke, S., and E Maier-Reimer, 1999: Climatology of the HOPE-G global ocean general circulation model. DKRZ Rep. No. 21, Hamburg, Germany.

4. UK Meteorological Office / Hadley Centre (Met-Office)

 

 Short description of institution

The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, which is a world-leader in climate change prediction. The Hadley Centre operates a fully coupled climate model and supercomputing programme and has great experience in this field. Its predictions are used by the UK Government to drive policy and as part of the IPCC process. The Hadley Centre model runs on its own SGI/Cray T3E machine with in excess of 500 processors. It is vastly experienced in scheduling, running and archiving data from climate model predictions. The Hadley Centre was created in 1990 and so has a 10-year track record in climate research and modelling including in making successful climate change predictions. It is therefore uniquely placed to be able to contribute its expertise to the PRISM programme. It also has considerable existing links with many other European climate centres. We also collaborate with all the other main climate research centres in the USA and world-wide. In addition we have collaborative projects with many UK universities especially those that form part of the Universities Global Modelling Project (UGAMP) co-ordinated from the University of Reading. As well as EC funding the Hadley Centre research and prediction programme is supported by the Department of the Environment and the UK Meteorological Office.

 

 Key persons

Since 1 April 1999 Prof. Alan Thorpe has been Director of Climate Research at The Met. Office. Prior to this he was for 17 years at the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading latterly as Head of Department and Professor of Meteorology. He has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals on many aspects of atmospheric sciences including convective storms, extra-tropical cyclones, boundary layer dynamics, predictability theory and orographic flows. As Director of Climate Research he is in charge of the programme of research of about 120 staff in the areas of climate model development, monitoring, detection, attribution and prediction of climate change.

Also involved will be Mick Carter who is in charge of all IT developments and operations in the Hadley Centre. He has many years of experience in the IT field with meteorological and climate models.

 

 Selected Publications

Mitchell J.F.B., T.C. Johns, M. Eagles, W.J. Ingram, and R.A. Davis, 1999: Towards the development of climate change scenarios. Climatic Change, 41, 547-581.

Senior C.A., 1999: Comparison of mechanisms of cloud-climate feedbacks in GCMs. J. Climate, 12, 1480-1489.

Tett S.F.B., P.A. Stott, M.R. Allen, 1999: Causes of twentieth century temperature change near the earth's surface. Nature, 399, 569-572.

Wood R.A., A.B. Keen, J.F.B. Mitchell and J.M. Gregory, 1999: Changing spatial structure of the thermohaline circulation in response to atmospheric CO₂ forcing in a climate model. Nature, 399, 572-575.

Frederiksen C.S., D.P. Rowell, R.C. Balgovind and C.K. Folland, 1999: Multidecadal simulations of Australian rainfall variability. The role of SSTs. J. Climate, 12, 357-379.

 Short description of institution

UK Universities Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme (UGAMP) is a core strategic programme in global atmospheric modelling, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). UGAMP operates as a co-ordinated community research programme facilitated, in part, by funding for the core programme, and involving over 30 Principal Investigators at 10 universities and research institutes throughout the UK. Infrastructure and co-ordination is provided by the NERC Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling, University of Reading, and by the Atmospheric Chemistry Modelling Support Unit, University of Cambridge.

UGAMP's prime objective is to understand the atmosphere, and its links to other systems (such as the oceans), in order to advance the science of climate prediction. To consolidate effort nationally and to ensure that user needs are met, UGAMP's climate research is based on exploitation of the Met. Office Unified Model as a national model for climate research and prediction. UGAMP has considerable expertise in porting the Unified Model to various computer architectures. Through support for the Unified Model and the co-ordination of access to supercomputing services, the core programme has enabled the UGAMP-wide use of the model. It is used to address a wide range of problems from decadal variability in the Atlantic/European Sector, influences of solar variability on climate, mechanisms of tropical climate variability, influence of the stratosphere on the troposphere, palaeoclimates and ice ages.

 

 Key persons

Prof. Alan O'Neill is Director of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling and Scientific Director, UK Universities Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme. He has worked extensively in upper atmosphere research and data assimilation, and has considerable experience of dynamical modelling and interpretation of satellite data. He acted as co-ordinator of the EU-funded Concerted Action: Data Assimilation in Readiness for Envisat (DARE).

Prof. Julia Slingo is Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling, where she leads a research group on Tropical Meteorology which covers a wide range of climate issues related to the Madden Julian Oscillation, El Niño, predictability of the Asian Summer Monsoon and global teleconnections. She was co-ordinator of the FP4 project 'Studies of the Hydrology, Influence and Variability of the Asian Summer Monsoon (SHIVA)', and is currently co-ordinator of the funded FP5 project 'Predictability and variability of monsoons and the agricultural and hydrological impacts of climate change (PROMISE)'.

 

 Selected Publications

Dethof, A., A. O'Neill, J.M. Slingo and H.G.J. Smit, 1999: A mechanism for moistening the lower stratosphere involving the Asian Summer Monsoon. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 125, 1079-1106.

Knudsen, B. M., W. A. Lahoz, A. O'Neill and J-J. Morcrette, 1998: Evidence for a substantial role for dilution in northern mid-latitude ozone depletion. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 4501,4504.

Lahoz, W. A., A. O'Neill, A. Heaps, R. Swinbank, R. S. Harwood, L. Froidevaux, W. G. Read, J. W. Waters, and G. E. Peckham, 1996: Vortex dynamics and the evolution of water vapour in the stratosphere of the southern hemisphere. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 122, 423-450.

Annamalai, H., J. M. Slingo, K.R. Sperber and K. Hodges, 1999: The mean evolution and variability of the Asian Summer Monsoon: Comparison of ECMWF and NCEP/NCAR Reanalyses. Mon. Wea. Rev., 127, 1157-1186.

Slingo, J.M., D.P. Rowell, K.R. Sperber and F. Nortley, 1999: On the predictability of the interannual behaviour of the Madden-Julian Oscillation and its relationship with El Niño. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 125, 583-609.

 

6. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (CNRS)

 Short description of institution

The IPSL (Institut Pierre Simon Laplace des Sciences de l'Environnement Global) is a Federation of 6 laboratories in the Paris area: Centre d'etudes des Environnements Terrestres et Planetaires (CETP), Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (LMD), Laboratoire d'Oceanographie Dynamique et Climatologie (LODYC), Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie Marines (LPCM), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement (LSCE), Service d'Aeronomie (SA). Its director is Gerard Megie. The IPSL climate modelling teams are grouped in a "Pole de Modelisation" chaired by Pascale Delecluse and Herve Le Treut, who will act as main contacts for the PRISM project. The aim of this Pole is to develop coupled models and use them to study the predictability of the climate system, the main biochemical cycles, and the response to anthropogenic forcing. For that purpose the IPSL has developed a structure to couple in a rather modular manner: the atmospheric GCM developed at LMD (LMDZ), the ocean model developed at LODYC (OPA, then ORCA), a surface continental scheme developed at LMD and LSCE (SECHIBA-STOMATE), an ocean biochemical model developed at LSCE and LODYC, a chemistry model developed at SA and LSCE (INCA). A sea-ice model has been developed at LODYC and LMD, but the continuation of this effort will be taken in charge by Universite Catholiqué de Louvain (UCL, T. Fichefet), in close collaboration with this Institute.

The interface between the atmospheric and oceanic models is OASIS, developed at CERFACS, and the consistency of this architecture with the developments at CNRM/Meteo-France are ensured through regular meetings. Both ocean and atmospheric models can be zoomed over a given area, and work to embed the UCL regional model within LMDZ are under way.

The main objective of PRISM (building a modular modelling system shared by several laboratories) has also been the main objective of the IPSL Pole de Modelisation, who intends to participate strongly to PRISM, and will co-ordinate two work packages (Specification of the data management system, M.A. Foujols, and interface with continental surface, J. Polcher). The IPSL has also to face the problem of model portability, since the two main computer centres to which it is linked (IDRIS, CEA) have different machines: NEC/SX5, Fujitsu/VPP.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Pascale Delecluse, is Directeur de Recherche at CNRS, Head of the LODYC climate Modelling Group, She is member of the Working Group on Climate Prediction, and chairs the french Programme National d'Etudes du Climat.

Dr. Hervé Le Treut is Directeur de Recherche at CNRS, in charge of the LMD Modelling Group. He is member of the Working Group on Coupled Models, and Lead Author in the IPCC TAR.

Dr. Jan Polcher is Charge de Recherche at CNRS. He is in charge of surface model evaluation and intercomparison under GEWEX.

Marie-Alice Foujols is Ingenieur de Recherche at CNRS. She is in charge of co-ordinating the design of the various coupling procedures, and the portability of the different IPSL models.

Dr. Olivier Aumont is Charge de Recherche at IRD (ex ORSTOM). He is in charge of modelling global carbon and major nutrients cycles in the ocean.

 Selected Publications

Braconnot P., O. Marti, S. Joussaume and Y. Leclainche, 2000: Ocean feedback in response to 6 kyr BP insolation. J. Climate, 13, 1537-1553.

Le Treut H., M. Forichon, O. Boucher, and Z.-X. Li, 1998: Sulphate aerosol indirect effect and CO₂ greenhouse effect: Equilibrium Response of the LMD GCM and associated cloud feedbacks. J. Climate, 11, 1673-1684.

Ciais, P., P. Friedlingstein, D.S. Schimel and P.P. Tans, 1999: A global calculation of d¹³C in soil respired carbon: implications for the biospheric uptake of anthropogenic CO₂. Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 13, 519-530.

Vialard, J., and P. Delecluse, 1998: An OGCM study for the TOGA decade. Part II: Barrier-layer formation and variability. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 28, 1089-1106.

Crossley, J., J. Polcher, P. Cox, N. Gedney, and S. Planton, 2000: Uncertainties linked to land-surface processes in climate change simulations. Climate Dynamics, in press.

7: Météo-France, Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (Météo-France)

 Short description of institution

The Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM) of the French meteorological service (Météo-France) is the department responsible for conducting the largest part of the meteorological research activities, and for co-ordinating research/development undertakings conducted within other departments. To carry out its missions, CNRM hosts approximately 225 permanent positions (one third being research scientists), and 45 students and visitors, working in specialised divisions. The climate group ´ GMGEC ª is one of these divisions in charge of the studies of present climate variability and of the impact of human activities on climate. Its main specific research activities concern the regionalization of climate and climate change particularly over Europe, the study of long-range forecasting, and the scenarios of climate change including the impact of human activities over stratospheric ozone. The CNRM has developed in collaboration with the European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecasting, a numerical model of the atmosphere for short-range operational forecasting (ARPEGE-IFS). The ARPEGE-climate model is a version of this model adapted to climate studies and is currently used in different European climate research laboratories (Déqué et al., 1994). The model offers the possibility to work with a variable resolution (Déqué and Piedelièvre, 1995) and has been coupled to the OPAICE ocean model of the "Laboratoire d’Océanographie Dynamique et de Climatologie" with the OASIS coupler from CERFACS to perform scenario and seasonal forecast simulations.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Serge Planton, senior scientist, is the head of the climate division since 1995. A few years ago, he has worked to the development of the land-surface parameterisation scheme (ISBA) which is implemented in the ARPEGE Climat model. His main present research topics are the study of ocean-air interactions and of the study on the impact of greenhouse gases increase on climate. On this last subject, he participated to the "Land Surface Processes and Climate Response" (LSPCR) EC project. He will be responsible of the co-ordination of WP3b and will participate to WP2a and WP3d.

Alain Braun, engineer, has a 6 year experience in community climate modelling. He assists users of the community climate model ARPEGE-Climat, ensures training courses and develops documentation. He will contribute to WP3b.

Dr. Michel Déqué, senior scientist, has a 15-year experience in climate simulation and has been head of the research group developing the climate version of ARPEGE-IFS for almost 10 years. He is part of the Modelling European Regional Climate Understanding and Reducing Errors ª (MERCURE) EC project. He is responsible of the development and delivery of the community climate model ARPEGE-Climat. He will contribute to WP3b and WP5.

Dr. Vincent-Henri Peuch, senior scientist, has a PhD thesis in the field of theoretical chemistry. He is at the head of the project for the development of the Chemical-Transport Model MOCAGE and its application to measuring campaigns and to chemistry-climate interaction studies. He will contribute to WP2a and WP3c.

Jean-Philippe Piédelièvre, engineer, has a 6-year experience in community climate modelling and has contributed to the development and validation of the variable resolution version of ARPEGE-Climat. He has also contributed to the adaptation of the ARPEGE-Climat model to different computers. He will contribute to WP3b.

Dr. Jean-Louis Ricard, senior scientist, has a PhD thesis in the field of the representation of clouds in climate models. He has a 3-year experience in the field of coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling applied to transient scenario simulations. He will contribute to WP3b and WP5.

One additional post-doc will prepare the variable resolution of ARPEGE-Climat for its interfacing with the PRISM system as part of WP3b, he will contribute to the interfacing of the land-surface component of ARPEGE-Climat with the PRISM system and will participate to the demonstration runs of WP5.

 

 Selected Publications

Déqué, M., C. Dreveton, A. Braun and D. Cariolle, 1994: The ARPEGE/IFS atmospheric model: a contribution to the French community climate modelling. Climate Dynamics, 10, 249-266.

Déqué, M., and J.-P. Piedelièvre, 1995: High resolution climate simulation over Europe. Climate Dynamics, 10, 321-339.

Douville, H., S. Planton, J-F. Royer, D.B. Stephenson, S. Tyteca, L. Kergoat, S. Lafont, R. A. Betts, 2000: The importance of vegetation feedbacks in doubled-CO₂ time-slice experiments. J. Geophys. Res., accepted.

Lefèvre, F., F. Figarol, K.S. Carslaw, and T. Peter, 1998: The 1997 Arctic ozone hole depletion quantified from three-dimensional model simulations. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 2425-2428.

Royer, J.F., F. Chauvin, B. Timbal, P. Araspin and D. Grimal, 1998: A GCM study of the impact of greenhouse gas increase on the frequency of occurrence of tropical cyclones. Climatic Change, 38, 307-343.

 

8. CERFACS

 Short description of institution

CERFACS (Toulouse, France), is one of the world's leading research institutes working on efficient algorithms for solving large-scale scientific problems. Created in 1990, the "Climate Modelling and Global Change" team is an integral part of the climate community which appreciates its main achievements, the coupler OASIS and several pioneer simulations of the ocean-atmosphere climate. The OASIS coupler is now widely used in Europe but also in Canada, Australia and more recently in the USA. Today, the team has three senior scientists, four research engineers, two post-docs, five Ph.D students, and several students for short term contracts which are distributed into five projects which interact strongly together: 1. Climate Variability; 2. Development of a seasonal forecasting system; 3. Data Assimilation and applications; 4. Development of the PALM Software for data assimilation; 5. OASIS coupler and ocean-atmosphere coupling.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Sophie Valcke, research engineer, holds a Ph. D in oceanography and worked as a post-doc on climate variability at the U. of Victoria, B.C., Canada. She joined the CERFACS in 1997. She is the leader of the OASIS coupler development project and has become a leading expert in the technical aspects of ocean-atmosphere coupling. She participated in climate change related European projects such as SIDDACLICH (EC-FP4). In this project, she will work for 15 person-months, mainly on WP3a.

Dr. Laurent Terray, senior researcher, works on coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling since 1990. He is the main developer of the CERFACS OASIS coupler. He has strong experience in several European projects (ACC, SIDDACLICH, and AGORA) and is now coordinating the French modelling activities related to North Atlantic and European interannual to decadal variability within the PNEDC French Program. In this project, he will work for 3 person-months, mainly on WP3a. One additional post-doc, should have strong interest in physical or mathematical sciences, and a strong experience in scientific programming. This person will work for 18 person-months, mainly on WP3a.

 Selected Publications

S. Valcke, L. Terray, and A. Piacentini, 2000: Oasis 2.4, Ocean atmosphere sea ice soil: user's guide. Technical Report TR/CMGC/00/10, CERFACS, Toulouse, France.

L. Terray, 1998: Sensitivity of climate drift to atmospheric physical parameterizations in a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. J. Climate, 11, 1633-1658.

P. Barthelet, L. Terray, and S. Valcke, 1998: Transient CO₂ experiment using the ARPEGE/OPAICE non flux corrected coupled model. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 2277-2280.

P. Barthelet, S. Bony, P. Braconnot, A. Braun, D. Cariolle, E. Cohen-Solal, J. Dufresne, P. Delecluse, M. Deque, L. Fairhead, M. Filiberti, M. Forichon, J. Grandpeix, E. Guilyardi, M. Houssais, M. Imbard, H. L. Treut, C. Levy, Z. Li, G. Madec, P. Marquet, O. Marti, S. Planton, L. Terray, O. Thual, and S. Valcke, 1998: Simulations couplées globales des changements climatiques associés à une augmentation de la teneur atmosphérique en CO₂. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 326, 677-684.

9. Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut (DMI)

 Short description of institution

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) was founded in 1872. Today, it has a staff of about 400 employees. DMI provides meteorological services for the community within the geographical area of Denmark, the Faroes and Greenland, including surrounding waters and airspace. DMI takes part in a number of national and international research projects.

Research and development is an integral part of the DMI activities. The areas covered include meteorology and air quality, oceanography, climate, middle atmosphere physics, solar-terrestrial physics and remote sensing. In January 1998 the Danish Climate Centre was established at DMI. Its main objective is to project climate into the 21st century for studies of the impacts of climate change. The Climate Centre activities include development of new and improved methods for satellite-based climate monitoring, studies of climate processes (including greenhouse effect, the role of ozone, air/sea/sea ice interactions and sun-climate relations), development of global coupled atmosphere-ocean climate models and of regional climate models, seasonal prediction, and preparation of global and regional climate scenarios for impact studies. DMI owns a high-performance computer, namely a NEC-SX4 with 16 processors and 4 Gigabytes of main memory, as well as additional local computer resources.

DMI has, in cooperation with MPI, started to set up a climate model based on semi-Lagrangian advection and highly efficient methods of solving the dynamical equations. However, it needs to be investigated further whether semi-Lagrangian advection schemes are feasible for extended-range simulations. In view of the ongoing work on efficient computational methods for global atmospheric climate models, DMI has the expertise to set up the scientific requirements for PRISM (workpackage 2a). Furthermore, DMI has a very long experience (since 1990) in regional climate modelling and running multidecadal high resolution (T106) simulations. There is considerable experience in handling the resulting large amounts of data. High resolution simulations have been utilised in the EU projects STOWASUS-2100 and ERACC and will as well be used in the new project PROMISE. Therefore DMI can give valuable input for workpackage 5.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Martin Stendel holds a M.Sc. in Meteorology (1988) and a Ph.D. in Meteorology (1993, both at the University of Cologne, Germany). Prior to his affiliation with DMI he has been employed at the University of Cologne (1988-1993) and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (1994-1998). Martin Stendel has extensive experience in the areas of climate modelling and climate change detection. His current research interests include natural and anthropogenic climate variations, the critical appraisal of observational data sets and reanalyses and the resolution dependence of climate statistics. Martin Stendel has been working in EU-funded projects, such as "HIRETYCS", "Validation of the ECMWF re-analysis" and "SINDICATE", and he is currently also involved in the EU-funded projects "SINTEX" and "PREDICATE".

Dr. Eigil Kaas (Head of the Climate Research Division) holds a M.Sc. in Meteorology (1987) and a Ph.D. in Meteorology (1993). He has extensive experience in several fields of meteorology, including numerical methods used in atmospheric models, limited area modelling, large scale flow dynamics and statistical downscaling of large scale flow. Eigil Kaas is co-ordinating the EU-supported projects "POTENTIALS" and "STOWASUS-2100", and he has been involved in several other projects supported by EU, e.g. "WASA", "ADVICE", "MILLENNIA" and "PROVOST".

 Selected Publications

Bengtsson, L., E. Roeckner and M. Stendel, 1999: Why is the global warming proceeding much slower than expected J. Geophys. Res., 104, 3865-3876.

Christy, J.R., D.E. Parker, S.J. Brown, I. Macadam, M. Stendel, 2000: Differential trends in tropical sea surface and atmospheric temperatures since 1979. Geophys. Res. Lett., submitted.

Kaas, E., A. Guldberg, W. May and M. Déqué, 1999: Using tendency errors to tune the parameterisation of unresolved dynamical scale interactions in atmospheric general circulation models. Tellus, 51A, 612-629.

Lopez, P., T. Schmith and E. Kaas, 2000: Sensitivity of the northern hemisphere circulation to North Atlantic SSTs in the Arpège climate AGCM. Climate Dynamics, accepted.

Stendel, M., J.R. Christy, and L. Bengtsson, 2000: Assessing levels of uncertainty in recent temperature time series. Climate Dynamics, 16, 587-601.

 

 

10. Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Rossby Centre (SMHI)

 Short description of institution

The Rossby Centre (RC) is the regional climate modelling unit at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, SMHI. RC was established in 1997 as the core in the national SWEdish regional CLImate Modelling programme (SWECLIM, 1997-2003), to develop atmospheric, oceanic and hydrologic regional models and to apply these to provide user-oriented climate scenarios. RC co-operates with other European global and regional modelling groups. The staff includes 8 researchers/modellers (atmospheric, ocean and hydrology researchers) and 2 system managers. There is also a dedicated person for user contacts.

The regional climate model (RCA) has been run forced by time slices from GCM-simulations and the ECMWF ERA-15 reanalyses. At the same time, a Baltic Sea 3-D ocean model has been developed for long simulations. A fully coupled combination of these regional models into a regional atmosphere-ice-ocean model (RCAO), is being implemented.

 

 Key persons

Markku Rummukainen. PhD in meteorology. Involved earlier in stratospheric ozone research in 1991-1997 at the Finnish Meteorological Institute and development of global 3-D modelling at the University of Oslo. Involved in several stratospheric research campaigns and projects with EU funding (lately in OSDOC, SAONAS, PVC). At Rossby Centre since 1997 to work on regional climate modelling. Holds the position of the SWEdish regional CLImate Modelling programme (SWECLIM) programme director. In PRISM he will work 7 person-months on the planning and implementation issues in WP3h and WP5.

Ulf Hansson. BSc in mathematics and computer science. Earlier work on meteorology, climatology and air chemistry projects, at Stockholm University, ECMWF, Météo-France, LMD and MPI-meteorologie/DKRZ, also in EU projects (GLOMAC & SINDICATE within EUROTRAC, ECCN). At the Rossby Centre he does programming and data management. In PRISM he will work 6 person-months on technical issues in WP3h and WP5.

Ralf Döscher. PhD in physical oceanography. Earlier work on ocean modelling and studies of the North Atlantic Thermohaline circulation. At AWI, Bremerhaven 1995-1996: parameterisation of overflows, global ocean modelling. Visiting Assistant Professor at University of Washington, Seattle 1997-1998: high resolution numerical studies of the Labrador and Irminger Seas. At Rossby Centre since 1998: sea-ice modelling, ocean-ice-atmosphere coupling and development of a 3-D Baltic Sea model. In PRISM he will work 7 person-months, on regional model coupling issues in WP3h.

Jouni Räisänen. PhD in meteorology. Involved in analysis and intercomparison of GCM simulations of present climate and anthropogenic climate change at the University of Helsinki in 1993-1997. Contributor to the IPCC WG I Scientific Assessments and a member of the Finnish IPCC-group in 1997. Since 1998, analyzing and validating the regional simulations at the Rossby Centre. In PRISM he will work 4 person-months, on the regional component contribuing to the demonstration experiments in WP5.

Erland Källén. Professor of dynamic meteorology, University of Stockholm. Previously at ECMWF (scientist), University of Utrecht (visiting scientist) and Danish Meteorological Institute (head of research). Involved in National Research Council projects and projects on a European basis, e.g. HIRLAM (head of the project for three years). Research interests: dynamical meteorology; numerical weather prediction and climate. Presently member of the ECMWF Scientific Advisory Committee, BALTEX SSG and Mission Advisory Group at ESA. In PRISM he will be involved in work on simulations done in WP5.

 Selected Publications

Döscher, R. and R. Redler, 1997: The relative importance of northern overflow and subpolar deep convection for the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 27, 1894-1902.

Rummukainen, M., J. Räisänen, B. Bringfelt, A. Ullerstig, A. Omstedt, U. Willen, U. Hansson and C. Jones, 2000: A regional climate model for northern Europe – model description and results from the downscaling of two GCM control simulations. Climate Dynamics, in press.

Rummukainen, M., J. Räisänen, A. Ullerstig and B. Bringfelt, 1999: A regional climate simulation stressing the significance of the Baltic Sea ice and lake ice in the Nordic climate (change). In: Ritchie, H. (ed.) Research activities in atmospheric and oceanic modelling, CAS/JSC working group on numerical experimentation. Report No. 28, WMO/TD-No. 942, p. 7.60-7.61.

Räisänen, J., 1997. Objective comparison of patterns of CO₂ induced climate change in coupled GCM experiments. Climate Dynamics, 13, 197-211.

Yang, S., B. Reinhold and E. Källén, 1997: Multiple weather regimes and baroclinically forced spherical resonance. J. Atmos. Sci., 54, 1397-1409.

 

 

11. Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC)

 

 Short description of institution

The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center was founded in 1986 as an independent non-profit research institute affiliated with the University of Bergen. The centre plans and executes international research projects and programmes funded by research councils, governmental agencies and industry mainly focused on: Climate studies with focus on the role of sea ice and ocean circulation particular at mid and high latitudes; development of numerical models for studies of marine environmental parameters and global/regional climate variations; and applications of remote sensing in coastal zone management, marine monitoring and forecasting of ocean physical and biological variables, marine pollution and sea ice. The Nansen Center staff at the end of 1999 consisted of 55 persons from nine countries, including scientific personnel, 14 Ph.D. candidates, 3 Master students and administrative personnel.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Helge Drange, applied mathematician, has wide experience in use of basin to global scale isopycnal ocean models and coupled ocean-sea ice-biogeochemical models for climate research. Head of the G. C. Rieber Climate Institute at NERSC since 1997. Task group leader for the ocean modelling work in the EC MAST-3 funded project ESOP-2 and the ongoing EC Environment project PREDICATE, principal investigator for the ocean modelling component in the Norwegian RegClim project, and member of the JGOFS North Atlantic Synthesis and Modelling Group. He has experience with coupling and integrating global AOGCMs, and his special field of interest is marine high latitude climate processes.

Prof. Ola M. Johannessen is at the Director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC). Johannessen has been involved in a series of scientific fields, including application of remote sensing in coastal and deep sea oceanography, sea ice research, climate, marine biology, surface oil pollution, natural oil seepage and operational ice monitoring and forecasting, with sea ice studies as the main interest. Coordinates and participates in several EC-funded sea ice projects.

Dr. Tore Furevik and scientist Mats Bentsen have both experience with coupling and running global AOGCMs with special focus on high northern latitudes, including the Arctic Basin. The work will be lead by Dr. Helge Drange, supervised by Prof. Ola M. Johannessen and carried out by Dr. Tore Furevik and scientst Mats Bentsen.

 

 Selected Publications

Bentsen, M., G. Evensen, H. Drange and A. Jenkins, 1999: Coordinate transformation on a sphere using conformal mapping, Mon. Wea. Rev., 127, 2733-2740.

Drange, H. and R. Bleck, 1997: Multi-dimensional forward-in-time and upstream-in-space based differencing for fluids, Mon. Wea. Rev., 125, 616-630.

Furevik, T., M. Bentsen, H. Drange, N.G. Kvamstø, and N. Kindem, 2000: Preliminary results from a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model. RegClim Gen. Tech. rep. no 4, in press.

Johannessen, O.M., E. Bjoergo, and M. Miles, 1996: Global warming and the Arctic. Science, 271, 129.

Johannessen, O.M., E.V. Shalina, and M. Miles, 1999: Satellite evidence for an Arctic sea ice cover in transformation. Science, 286, 1937-1939.

 

 

12. CSCS, Switzerland (ETH Zürich)

 Short description of institution

The Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, founded in 1854, comprises 83 institutes and laboratories, 330 professorships and about 840 lecturers who fulfil teaching obligations and conduct research. A staff of more than 7,500 - with a 25% proportion of women - work in teaching, research and administration. Current statistics of the ETH show 11,700 registered students. Each year about 1,250 receive an ETH diploma and a further 530 complete a doctoral thesis. Current annual expenditure has reached 1 bio. Swiss francs.

ETH provides the national HPCN solutions in highest-end capability computing at its Swiss Center for Scientific Computing (CSCS Manno). Building upon its extensive record in software engineering, performance analysis, optimisation and benchmarking of various HPCN architectures for the broadest range of "real life" applications in scientific and engineering fields, it will be responsible for the quality assurance, portability and benchmarking aspects of the developed software.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Djordje Maric is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the national HPCN (High Performance Computing and Networking) at ETH-CSCS (Manno). He is responsible for the direction of the national HPCN strategies and reports directly to the ETH Vice-President for Research and Business Relations. Dr. Maric is a Member of numerous International Working Groups and Advisory Boards on HPCN, among which the well known Working Group of the German Science Council. He has overseen and coordinated the optimisation of a number of computationally-intensive application codes for parallel / vector supercomputers, and played an important role, from the HPCN side, in MAP ("Mesoscale Alpine Program") which has brought new insights into HPCN-based High Resolution Regional Weather Predictions. Dr. Maric is also the co-author of a recent study for the ETH-Council on "High Performance Computing Technology Trends in relation to the Swiss Center for Scientific Computing".

 Selected Publications

Maric, D., 1998: Obtaining high sustained performance of real-life applications at CSCS-ETHZ. In Supercomputer '98, Mannheim, June18-20, 1998, Vol. 16, Ed. H.-W. Meuer, K. G. Saur München.

Benoit, R., P. Binder, C. Schär, S. Chamberland, H. C. Davies, M. Desgagné, D. Lüthi, C. Girard., D. Maric, P. Pellerin, S. Thomas, 1999: Meoscale Alpine Programme (MAP) field experiment. Proc. 13th Annual International Symposium on High Performance Computing Systems and Applications, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 9pp.

Benoit, R., C. Schär, P. Binder, S. Chamberland, H. C. Davies, M. Desgagné, C. Girard, D. Lüthi, D. Maric, E. Müller, P. Pellerin, J. Schmidli, C. Schwierz, M. Sprenger, A. Walser, S. Willemse, W. Yu, and E. Zala, 2000: Realtime finescale numerical weather prediction during the MAP field phase. Proc. 9th Conference on Mountain Meteorology, American Meteorological Society, Aspen, CO. (August 2000).

Benoit, R., C. Schär, P. Binder, S. Chamberland, H.C. Davies, M. Desgagné, C. Girard, C. Keil, N. Kouwen, D. Lüthi, D. Maric, E. Müller, P. Pellerin, J. Schmidli, C. Schwierz, M. Sprenger, A. Walser, S. Willemse, W. Yu and E. Zala, 2000: The realtime ultrafinescale forecast support during the Special Observing Period of the Mesoscale Alpine Programme (MAP). Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., in press.

 

13. National Institute of Geophysics (ING)

 Short description of institution

The National Institute of Geophysics is a very old research institution that has been tasked with the monitoring of the geophysical environment for Italy. Traditionally this activity has been based on seismic monitoring and on the study of the high atmosphere. In recent years they have started a programme to initiate activities also in the field of geophysical fluid dynamics. They have their main site in Rome, but they are in the process of expanding in other cities of Italy, including Bologna.

The institute has coordinated several EU projects and has been involved in several others. Responsible for the project will be Dr. A. Navarra who will be assisted by Dr. B. Zolesi, who is the leader of the aeronomic section of the Institute. The ING will be collaborating closely with the EU-projects SINTEX and AGORA, coordinated by Antonio Navarra, that will be providing the expertise and the numerical models that are being developed in the projects for the benefits of the community. The models include the ECHAM4 model, the GIOTTO coupled model (ECHAM4+MOM), the new coupled model ECHAM4+OPA7, the data assimilation system developed within AGORA. Dr. Navarra will be responsible for the specification of the PRISM demonstration part and for the compilation of the results of the demonstration runs.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Bruno Zolesi is a scientist at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica where in 1990 took the position of Director of Research; since 1985 he is also Director of the Department of Aeronomy. The principal themes of interest concern the upper atmosphere observations and investigations, particularly connected with the terrestrial ionosphere, its temporal and spatial variability its medium-term prediction and forecasting models. He is involved in several national and international research projects as the European COST 238 PRIME (Prediction Retrospective Ionospheric Mapping over Europe), for which he was working group leader of one of the five working groups, as the European COST251 IITS (Improved Quality in Ionospheric Telecommunication), for which he is Vice Chairman, and the Italian National Antarctic Plan, for which he was for ten years head of the ionospheric section.

Dr. Antonio Navarra has been involved in climate research for several years, being involved as partner in several EU projects and as coordinator in others (DICE, AGORA). His main interests are in climate variability and in the tropical dynamics at interannual to decadal time scales. He is currently coordinator of SINTEX and he will provide his experience at coordinating international groups and in designing complex international modelling projects to PRISM. Results and models developed in the project DICE and AGORA and strong interchange and coordination with SINTEX will therefore be provided.

 

 Selected Publications

Miyakoda, K., N. Ward and A. Navarra, 1999: Tropical-wide teleconnection and oscillation. II: The ENSO-monsoon system. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 125, 2937-2964.

Navarra, A., 2000: SST-Forced experiments and climate variability. In: Beyond El Niño: decadal and interdecadal climate variability, A. Navarra, Editor. Springer, in press.

Navarra, A., N. Ward and K. Miyakoda, 1999: Tropical-wide teleconnection and oscillation. I: Teleconnection indices and type I/type II states. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 125, 2909-2936.

E.P. Szuszczewich, P. Blanchard, P. Wilkinson, G. Crowley, T. Fuller-Rowell, P. Richards, M. Abdu, T. Bullett, R. Hanbaba, J.P. Lebreton, M. Lester, M. Lockwood, G. Millward, M. Wild, S. Pulinets, B.M. Reddy, I. Stanislawska, G. Vannaroni, and B. Zolesi, 1998: The first real-time world-wide ionosphere predictions network: An advance in support of spaceborn experimentation, on line model validation, and space weather. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 449-452.

Zolesi, B., Lj.R. Cander and G. De Franceschi, 1996: On the Potential Applicability of SIRM (Simplified Ionospheric Regional Model) to different Mid-Latitude Areas. Radio Science, 31, 547-552.

Zolesi, B., Lj. Cander and G. De Franceschi, 1994: A simple algorithm for regional mid latitude ionospheric modelling. Adv. Space Res., 14, 57-60.

 

14. The Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (MPI-BGC)

 Short description of institution

The MPI-BGC is devoted to the study of global biogeochemical cycles. This laboratory opened its doors in 1997 and is quickly expanding: about 100 scientists and technicians are now full-time employees, with necessary computer support. The MPI-BGC is an interdisciplinary laboratory where leading experts in atmospheric, land, and ocean sciences study biogeochemical cycles through the means of (1) data analysis from satellite, in situ and sediment/ice-core measurements and (2) modelling studies of land and ocean ecosystems and atmospheric transport processes. One of the main research area of the MPI-BGC is the study of the carbon cycle and its variability at all time-scale, including recent interannual-to-centennial variability.

 

 Key persons

Dr. Martin Heimann leads the Biogeochemical Tracers group at the MPI-BGC. He is a physicist by training, and has been active in the modeling and analysis of the global carbon cycle, its isotopes and its interaction with the climate system for over 20 years. He was coordinator of the EU-funded European Study of Carbon in Ocean, Biosphere and Atmosphere (ESCOBA, 1990-1998), and since 1998 he coordinates the EU-project EUROSIBERIAN CARBONFLUX (ENV4-CT97-0491). Since 1992 he has led the Carbon Cycle Model Linkage Project (CCMLP) funded by the U.S. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), which continues to provide data- and model-based analyses of the carbon cycle which are key input to IPCC assessments. Prof. Heimann has been a lead author of the global carbon cycle chapter in the IPCC reports for 1994, 1995 and 2000. He is a member of the international task force on Global Analysis, Interpretation and Modeling (GAIM) of the IGBP, and a member of the Academia Europaea.

Dr. Corinne Le Quéré is a senior scientist at MPI-BGC. She is a physicist by training, specialized in the modeling and analysis of the ocean carbon cycle, including and physical, chemical, and biological aspects. In particular, she has done and analyzed carbon simulations using a range of different ocean biogeochemistry models (Princeton's OBM, HAMOCC3, P3ZD), coupled to ocean and climate models (MOM, OPA, GFDL's coupled model). She has participated in the Ocean Carbon Cycle Intercomparison Project (OCMIP) funded by the European Union. She co-coordinated Princeton University's contribution to the IPCC Technical Report (1996) and is a lead authors of the global carbon cycle chapter in the IPCC 2000. She is a member of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR).

 

 Selected Publications

Heimann, M. and C.D. Keeling, 1989: A three-dimensional model of atmospheric CO₂ transport based on observed winds; 2, Model description and simulated tracer experiments. In: Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and the Western Americas, Geophysical Monograph, 55, ed. D. H. Peterson, 237-275.

Kasibhatla, P., M. Heimann, P. Rayner, N. Mahowald, R.G. Prinn, and D.E. Hartley, 1999: Inverse Methods in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Geophysical Monograph Series, 114, 324 pages.

Orr, J. C., E. Maier-Reimer, U. Mikolajewicz, P. Monfray, J. L. Sarmiento, J. R. Toggweiler, N. K. Taylor, J. Palmer, N. Gruber, C. L. Sabine, C. Le Quéré, R. M. Key and J. Boutin, 2000: Estimates of anthropogenic carbon uptake from four 3-D global ocean models, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, in press.

Le Quéré, C., J.C. Orr, P. Monfray, O. Aumont, and G. Madec, 2000: Interannual variability of the ocean sink of CO₂ from 1979 through 1997, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, in press.

Sarmiento, J. and C. Le Quéré, 1996: Oceanic carbon dioxide uptake in a model of century-scale global warming. Science, 274, 1346-1350.

 

15. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

 Short description of institution

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is one of very few institutions world-wide that aim at integrating all essential components contributing to climate change impacts. One of PIK's outstanding goals is to bring together the broad spectrum of disciplines involved in climate impact research in a concerted research effort.

The Data & Computation department serves PIK by (i) providing and maintaining a flexible computing infrastructure, (ii) supporting the management and analysis of both simulated and measured data, and (iii) supporting the implementation of modern methods of scientific computing and computer science. The department has a team of 4 permanent staff scientists, 3 scientists on contract, 4 scientific programmers on contract, 2 Ph.D. students, 3 permanent technical staff members, and 2 technical staff members on contract.

 Key persons

Prof. Rupert Klein has joined PIK as the head of the D&C department in October 1997, at which point he was also appointed as a professor of Mathematics at Freie Universität Berlin. Since then he has defined the department structure as described above, and has initiated projects in the areas of software development for model coupling, scientific visualization, analysis and numerical methods for atmospheric flow simulations, and the implementation and extension of regional climate models.

A team of one mathematician and two computer scientists, Dr. Thomas Slawig, Dipl.-Inf. Arnulf Guenther, and Dipl.-Inf. Cezar Ionescu, are currently developing the software management environment MODENV, which is to be the common PIK platform for interdisciplinary modelling. This team of three will be involved in PIK's contribution to the PRISM project with the intention to achieve interoperability between PRISM and MODENV. The projected EC-funds of PIK's contribution to PRISM will partly support one of the team members.

 Selected Publications

Th. Schneider, N. Botta, K.-J. Geratz, and R. Klein, 1999: Extension of finite volume compressible flow solvers to multi-dimensional, variable density zero Mach number flow. J. Comput. Phys., 155, 248-286.

N. Botta, R. Klein, and A. Almgren, 1999: Dry Atmosphere Asymptotics, PIK Report No. 55.

Th. Slawig, 1999: Domain Optimization for the Navier-Stokes Equations by an Embedding Domain Method. Birkhaeuser Series of Numerical Mathematics, 133, Basel.

Th. Slawig, 2000: Domain Optimization of a Multi-Element Airfoil Using Automatic Differentiation. Advances in Engineering Software, submitted.

A. Guenther, 1993: Entwurf und Implementierung eines Laufzeitsystems für Fernaufrufe im Rahmen der objektorientierten Betriebssystemfamilie PEACE für massiv parallele Rechnersysteme. Diploma Thesis, GMD FIRST/TU Berlin.

 

16. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)

 Short description of institution

ECMWF is an international organisation supported by eighteen European states, and with co-operation agreements with several other European states, EUMETSAT and WMO. It is responsible for producing operational global data assimilation products and medium-range forecast products for its Member States, and undertakes a comprehensive programme of research to ensure the continued development and improvement of its products. ECMWF also has a strong research programme aimed at the development of seasonal forecasting techniques, and is equipped with the most advanced supercomputers, fast telecommunications links, powerful workstation servers and unique facilities for data handling and archives. Integrations comprising the multi-model seasonal forecast DEMETER ensemble dataset are being run and archived at ECMWF. Seasonal forecasts using the ECMWF coupled model are available on the web site http://www. ecmwf.int/.

 Key persons

Dr. Martin Miller is Head of the Model Division at ECMWF. He has extensive experience of research and development in atmospheric modelling for numerical weather prediction, both as an active researcher and through management of research programmes at ECMWF.

Dr. Timothy Palmer is the Head of the Predictability, Diagnostics and Seasonal Prediction Section at ECMWF, was the co-ordinator of the IVth framework project PROVOST and is co-ordinator of the Vth framework project DEMETER.

Nils Wedi is a research analyst in the Numerical Aspects section at ECMWF. He has developed the preparation system ‘prepIFS' for experiments with the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) at ECMWF and developed an easy-to-use Java based user interface which enables access to the computer facilities at ECMWF by the member states via the Internet.

 Selected Publications

Brankovic, C., and T.N. Palmer, 2000: Seasonal skill and predictability of PROVOST ensembles. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc.,126, 2035-2068.

Buizza, R, T. Petroliagis, T.N. Palmer, J. Barkmeijer, M. Hamrud, A. Hollingsworth, A. Simmons,, and N. Wedi, 1998: Impact of model resolution and ensemble size on the performance of an Ensemble Prediction System. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 1998, 124, 1935-1960.

Palmer, T.N., 2000: Predicting uncertainty in forecasts of weather and climate. Rep. Prog. Phys., 63, 71-116.

Palmer, T.N., C Brankovic, and D. Richardson, 2000: A probability and decision model analysis of PROVOST seasonal multi-model ensemble integrations. Q. J. R. Meteor. Soc., 126, 2013-2034.

Wedi, N., 1999: PrepIFS - Global modelling via the Internet. ECMWF Newsletter 83.

 

 

17. Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL-ASTR)

 Short description of institution

The Institut d’Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître (UCL-ASTR) is part of the Physics Department of the Université Catholique de Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). At present, it is composed of 5 internal professors, 9 external professors, 7 support staff, 13 postdoctoral researchers or visiting scientists, and 8 postgraduate students at varying stages of their PhD. Over the last 30 years, UCL-ASTR has gained a world-wide reputation for the study of climate, climatic changes, and mesoscale meteorology. All its research activities are well integrated in Belgian, European, and international research programmes. So far, UCL-ASTR’s scientists have authored, co-authored, or edited over 300 books and refereed papers. According to the International Citation Index, these contributions have been referred to over 1,700 times.

UCL-ASTR’s current research activities are organised in five main themes: (1) reconstruction of past climates with intermediate-complexity models (both two-dimensional and three-dimensional) of the geosphere-biosphere system, (2) numerical modelling of the global ocean circulation and sea ice, (3) study of the interannual-to-centennial climate variability in polar regions with three-dimensional coupled atmosphere-sea-ice-ocean models of various levels of complexity, (4) prediction of future climate changes with a hierarchy of Earth’s system models, and (5) mesoscale atmospheric modelling, with applications to meteorology-climatology and air pollution. All these activities are conducted in close collaboration with the IPSL, Paris.

 Key persons

Thierry Fichefet is Research Associate with the National Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium and Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He has gathered 15 years of experience in global climate modelling, with emphasis on large-scale sea-ice–ocean interactions. At UCL-ASTR, he is leading a team of 6 scientists working on the development and use of three-dimensional models of the Earth’s climate system. His list of publications encompasses about 60 papers in refereed journals and books. He is member of the ACSYS/CLIC Scientific Steering Group and is the Belgian representative in CLIVAR. Since 1984, he has participated to 9 EC R&D projects. In PRISM, he will contribute to WP3f.

Hugues Goosse is Senior Research Assistant with the National Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium. He has 6 years of experience in modelling sea ice and ocean circulation and their effects on climate. He is author or co-author of 15 papers published in peer-review journals and books, and is frequently invited as expert to ACSYS/CLIC and CLIVAR meetings. In PRISM, he will participate to WP3f.

Benoît Tartinville is Senior Research Assistant at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He has 7 years of experience in modelling geophysical fluid dynamics. His main research topic is now large-scale ice–ocean interactions. He is author or co-author of 11 papers published in peer-review journals and books. In PRISM, he will work on WP3f.

 Selected Publications

Fichefet, T., and M.A. Morales Maqueda, 1997: Sensitivity of a global sea ice model to the treatment of ice thermodynamics and dynamics. J. Geophys. Res., 102, 12,609-12,646.

Fichefet, T., and H. Goosse, 1999: A numerical investigation of the spring Ross Sea polynya. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 1015-1018.

Fichefet, T., and M.A. Morales Maqueda, 1999: Modelling the influence of snow accumulation and snow-ice formation on the seasonal cycle of the Antarctic sea-ice cover. Climate Dynamics, 15, 251-268.

Goosse, H., and T. Fichefet, 1999: Importance of ice-ocean interactions for the global ocean circulation: A model study. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 23,337-23,355.

Fichefet, T., B. Tartinville, and H. Goosse, 2000: Sensitivity of the Antarctic sea ice to the thermal conductivity of snow. Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 401-404.

 

 

18. NEC Deutschland GmbH (NEC)

 Short description of institution

NEC European Supercomputer Systems (NEC ESS)

With its first European office in Cologne NEC established in 1990 its activities for marketing and sales of NECs line of Supercomputers in Europe. The operations name is NEC European Supercomputer Systems, NEC ESS. At that time 3 NEC SX-3 supercomputers had been installed in Europe (CSCS in Switzerland, NLR in the Netherlands, and the University of Cologne). In 1996, with the success of the SX-4 Supercomputer, NEC expanded its activities in Europe. Since that time more than 30 SX-4 NEC Supercomputer Systems have been installed in Europe. With the announcement of the SX-5, several large SX-5 systems were installed and are used in France and Germany. Today NEC ESS employs more than 50 people to support the expanding market for Vector-Supercomputers in Europe. Main target markets are meteorological and climate simulation activities throughout Europe, as well as the automotive industry.

NEC Europe Ltd. C&C Research Laboratories, sub-contractor.

The C&C Research Laboratories, NEC Europe Ltd., St. Augustin (CCRLE) is a research center which was founded by NEC Europe Ltd. (a 100% owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation) in 1994 and is located at GMD's Technopark in Sankt Augustin, Germany. The main laboratory topic is research-oriented software development for parallel computing, with target platforms ranging from the parallel vector supercomputer SX-5 to massively parallel systems, such as the NEC Cenju-4, and PC clusters. The laboratory has research staff with extensive experience in the development of parallel solvers (from basic iterative algorithms to full applications) and of parallel software systems. It is responsible for the message-passing programming interface (MPI) on all NEC platforms. In various projects the laboratory developed the CLIC parallel communications library for numerical simulation applications. As part of the Esprit CISPAR project, it created a tool for the visualization of the data exchange within the coupling library. Furthermore, underpinning their role in PRISM, they ported the OASIS coupler software to the NEC SX-4 machine.

In addition to the CISPAR project, the Laboratory has previously contributed to the ESPRIT projects DRAMA, SEP-Tools and HPF+ and is currently involved in the IST project SIMBIO.

 

 Key persons

Dipl.-Ing. Kolja Kuse worked for Data General, Alliant Computer Systems and Cray Research in different kinds of marketing and sales positions including special projects. Since 1996 he is working for NEC European Supercomputer Systems as account manager in different German and European areas.

Rolf Hempel studied Applied Mathematics and Physics at the University of Bonn, where he graduated as Diplom-mathematiker (Master's degree). In 1985 he joined GMD (German Research Centre for Information Technology) where his main activities were in the area of software portability for parallel computers with distributed memory. He designed and implemented the GMD Communications Library as part of the German national SUPRENUM project, and the Fortran PARMACS portability library whilst a visiting scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. He subsequently developed this software further in the projects Esprit II GENESIS and Esprit III PPPE. In 1992 he was co-founder of the international message passing standardization activity MPI, where he chaired the subcommittee on process topologies, and co-authored the MPI-1 standard document. In 1996 Rolf Hempel joined the staff of the NEC C&C Research Lab at Sankt Augustin, where initially he was employed as Senior Research Staff Member and then as Manager with responsibility for projects on programming interfaces and libraries.

Hubert Ritzdorf studied Mathematics at the University of Bonn and received his Master's Degree in 1986. As a research scientist in the Institute SCAI of the GMD from October 1986 until April 1996, he has developed and implemented the high-level communications library CLIC which supports parallel multigrid applications and self-adaptive local refinements for regular and block-structured grids. In addition, he was an active member of the Parallel Multigrid Group of SCAI. Since May 1996 he is employed as senior research staff member at the NEC C&C Research Laboratory at Sankt Augustin. He has implemented MPI based on MPICH for the NEC Cenju computers and he maintains and develops the MPI/SX product software for the NEC SX supercomputers. In addition, he continues the design and implementation of the CLIC Library in a cooperation with the GMD.

 

19. Fujitsu and Fecit-France (FECIT)

 Short description of institution

Fecit - France was created in April 1998. Its overall mission is to be a multi-disciplinary centre devoted to the development of information technology on the latest high-performance parallel computers. With Fujitsu high performance computers currently in use on projects from aerospace design to weather forecasting, one of fecit ’s main priorities is to provide expert support for the research and development objectives of Fujitsu's European clients. We are also engaged in supporting Fujitsu's own extensive research activities, developing scientific and business HPC products and working with independent software vendors to enable them to port applications onto Fujitsu computers.

 

 Key persons

Dr Jean Latour (58) first worked 15 years as Research Associate at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Astrophysics. He has a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics, in the domain of stellar structure and turbulent convection. After joining Cray Research in 1983 he worked as an analyst for applications and system. He collaborated with Meteo France for the tuning of the ARPEGE code on the C98 and T3E. After joining Fujistu Systems Europe in 1997, he continued this task with Meteo France on the VPP700 and VPP5000. Currently he is involved with CERFACS in the development of PALM within the Mercator Project for the design of the message passing and process management layers. Fujitsu Systems Europe is a sister company of fecit and since Jean Latour has developed relations with Cerfacs and Meteo France, he is in charge of this project on behalf of fecit France.

 

20. Silicon Graphics (SGI)

 Short description of institution

SGI is the leading vendor of computer systems to the scientific and technical market. SGI focuses its products and its activities on the scientific and technical market where it supplies supercomputers, servers, workstations and high-end visualisation systems. Most of the premiere institutions in research, education and engineering industry are amongst SGI’s customers. Examples for large customers are the ASCII Mountain Blue Project with a 6.000 processor system, UK Academics with an 800 processor system and BMW with over 800 installed processors from SGI. In the climate and weather modelling field large customers in Europe are the Hadley Centre with over 1500 processors, the German Weather Centre with 800 processors and DKRZ with a large SGI vector system. In addition to large supercomputers SGI supplies servers to the local research groups in climate modelling, e.g. in Germany at DLR and Fraunhofer Society, as well as high-end visualisation equipment.

SGI is uniquely qualified to make significant contributions to the PRISM project. Because of its focus on scientific and technical computing SGI has significant experience working with large numerical models including climate models. In Europe SGI has over 40 experts working daily with numerical models, most with a Ph.D in Science or Engineering. We also have a test, demo and benchmark centre in Switzerland with large servers as well as special high-end visualisation equipment.

In addition to SGI’s experience with large models we are basically the world’s only supplier of high-end visualisation systems. The use of these systems to visualise the results of numerical models has proven to add significant insight into the results and has also helped significantly to make the results understandable to non-experts.

SGI is also uniquely qualified for this project because we have experience with large vector systems as well as large cache-based massively parallel microprocessor systems. While traditionally large climate codes have been run on vector systems large microprocessor-based system have been proven to show excellent performance and by far the best price performance for large climate codes. As part of the „Portability" work package SGI will first assure that the large model codes will execute correctly on large microprocessor based systems. We will also assure that the special characteristics of cache-based massively-parallel architectures are considered in the development and enhancement of the codes. Where necessary we will make changes to the codes to adapt to these architectures and will work with the development teams to integrate these modifications in the codes.

As part of the „Internet Presentation and Communication" work package SGI will bring is significant experience in the design of web-based interfaces for scientific and technical work to this project. As an example SGI has designed and implemented a web-based interface system CAEBench, which is the standard interface for the design engineers at BMW. SGI now has a staff of about 100 people working in Europe on integration and development projects with the scientific and engineering community.

Initial work for these work packages can be done on a small server in our programmer‘s office. To verify the correctness of the numerical models and to understand their performance characteristics on massively-parallel cache-based systems tests on large systems need to be run as well. SGI has a 64-processor O2000 available for this kind of work in Switzerland and a 512-processor O2000 available in Mountain View, USA. These large systems need to be exclusively dedicated to these tasks at certain times. Budget for the use of these systems - including dedicated time – is included in this proposal. The same tasks will also be done for other system architectures used by the various modelling groups. This will be done on the systems of the respective modelling groups by remote access and onsite travel if required.

 

 Key persons

The Project Manager from SGI for the PRISM project will be Dr. Wolfgang Mertz. He has PhD from the University of Innsbruck on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics. While he was assistant professor at that University he did a lot of software development for scientific codes. After his time at the University he spent a year in Brisbane/Australia to work for CSIRO in a mining research project. From 1989 till 1994 he was HPC Presales Analyst for Convex Computer, Germany, specialized on code-optimization and computer-architectures. Since December 1994 he works for SGI. Initially he was Project-manager for SuperComputing in the German Organization doing code-optimizations, giving technical presentations at customers and conferences and working with customers to propose a solution for their problems. He now works as an HPC-consultant in SGI's European organization specialized amongst others on Weather- and Environmental Customers

Robert Uebelmesser has a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Colorado. He worked for 3 years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a programmer supporting the scientists in the development of weather and climate models. From 1980 to 1993 Robert Uebelmesser worked for Cray Research in Germany first as an applications pre- and postsales analyst and then in various technical management functions in applications support and software development. From 1993 until today Robert Uebelmesser had management roles in sales and general management at Cray and then at SGI. Today Robert Uebelmesser is responsible for the SGI activities in Germany in the Education, Research, and Science Industry markets.

21. SUN Germany (Sun)

 Short description of institution

Sun Microsystems was incorporated in February 1982 by the German Andreas von Bechtolsheim. With offices in 170 countries and $15 Billion revenue the last Fiscal Year 2000 Sun is a global leader in network computing with more than 37500 employees. Our highly responsive service division supports more than a million systems worldwide.

At the heart of Sun's success is technology. Sun delivers the components and tools for the networking strategy "We're the dot in :com": Zero Admin SunRay1 desktop systems, high performance Ultra Workstations, Internet-/Intranet-, Workgroup- and Departmental Servers with PC inter operability, 64 CPU data centre server, Java and Jini technologies, 64 bit Solaris system software.

Our long-standing relationships with the industry's leading software providers and systems integration firms ensure a comprehensive portfolio of enterprise-wide solutions. More than 900,000 programmers are developing innovative Java applications. More than half of the medium to large companies worldwide are using Java technology. More than 75 authorized Java CenterSM facilities help companies around the world implement Java solutions.

The German organization Sun Microsystems GmbH was founded 1984 with it's headquarter in Heimstetten near Munic and offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Ratingen, Langen Stuttgart. In Fiscal Year 2000 the Sun Microsystems GmbH achieved 1,766 Billion DM revenue with 1500 employees.

 Key persons

The responsible contact at Sun Microsystems GmbH for the PRISM project support will be Dr. Hans-Joachim Hinz, education & research district manager north. Dr. Hans-Joachim Hinz studied physics at University of Hamburg and holds a Phd in applied physics. Since 1980 he was active in education in different computer companies. From 1980-1988 he worked for DEC, thereafter as a Sales Manages for Convex until 1996 when he took a managing position with HP. Since 1999 he is manager for education of Sun Microsystems GmbH.

 

C8. Economic development and scientific and technological prospects