Support of the Data Distribution Centres for the 6th IPCC Assessment Report

Currently the sixth IPCC Assessment Report (AR6) is being prepared. The IPCC's Data Distribution Centre (DDC) co-jointly with Working Group I (WG I), has set itself the goal of making the results of the AR6 more transparent and comprehensible. For this purpose, for the first time guidelines for the use of data in the AR6 are being drawn up. These describe how data and software used should be documented and cited, or how the illustrations and tables of the AR6 were derived from the data.

2nd DYAMOND-ESiWACE Hackathon

Due to the success of its first edition in August 2018, a second hackathon was organised on 19-21 June 2019 in Mainz to process the global high-resolution data from DYAMOND model runs.

Start of the project AtMoDat: Kick-Off at DKRZ

The Kick-Off meeting of the project AtMoDat took place at DKRZ on 17th and 18th June 2019. AtMoDat started on 1st June 2019 and is project funded for three years by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and aims at enhancing the (inter-)disciplinary reusability of atmospheric model data.

ISC‘19: Mistral on rank 73 of the TOP500 list

From June 16 to 20, about 3,500 conference attendees and 160 national and international exhibitors attended the ISC High Performance 2019 (ISC'19) in Frankfurt/Main to discuss the latest HPC technological developments and applications. This year's focus was on the categories of HPC systems, applications and algorithms, as well as future-oriented trends and challenges in the field of high-performance computing. During the conference the latest TOP500 list of the strongest HPC systems was launched. Mistral was listed in rank 73 and is therefore still the sixth largest supercomputer in Germany.

Heiko Maas meets climate researchers in Hamburg

On 21st May 2019, Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas gathered on-site information of climate research from scientists of the University of Hamburg, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ).

Visit of the Administrative Centre for China's Agenda 21 in Hamburg

A delegation of high-level representatives from the Administrative Centre for China's Agenda 21 (ACCA21) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China visited the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) on 29th of April 2019.

DKRZ visits IBS in Korea

From 25 to 27 April 2019, Prof. Thomas Ludwig and Michael Böttinger accepted the invitation of Prof. Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Institute for Climate Physics, and visited him at his institute in Busan (Korea). First, Prof. Ludwig gave a keynote talk at the inauguration of the supercomputer Aleph in Daejon. On the following day, Michael Böttinger presented the visualization possibilities and activities at the DRKZ in Busan.

DKRZ's contributions to EGU 2019

From April 7 to 12, more than 14,000 geoscientists from all over the world met in Vienna (Austria) at the annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU 2019) to discuss topics from all disciplines of earth, planetary and space sciences. The DKRZ was involved in numerous activities at this year's annual meeting.

UCP 2019: Better understanding of clouds and rainfall

From 25th February to 1st March 2019 more than 200 specialists from all over the world presented their latest research results on the "Understanding of Clouds and Precipitation" in the Harnack House of the Max Planck Society in Berlin.

ICON developer meeting at the DKRZ

From February 11th to 14th, 49 participants met for the first of the two ICON developer meetings scheduled for 2019 at the DKRZ in Hamburg. This meeting was followed by the ICON infrastructure meeting that was attended by 26 scientists on February 14th and 15th. The infrastructure meetings take place on a quarterly basis. Both events were organized by the DKRZ. The German-Swiss ICON community includes the DKRZ, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the German Weather Service, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the ETH Zurich, the CSCS (Swiss National Supercomputing Center) and the Swiss weather service MeteoSwiss.

The MPI-Grand Ensemble (MPI-GE) is now available from ESGF

The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) Grand Ensemble (MPI-GE) is the largest ensemble of a single state-of-the-art comprehensive climate model (MPI-ESM 1.1) currently available. The MPI-GE consists of five ensembles of 100 simulations each under different forcing scenarios, where the forcing scenarios correspond to those used in CMIP5. MPI-GE allows to address scientific questions that could not be answered in the past, such as: Does internal variability of the climate system change under different forcing conditions? Furthermore, novel approaches of comparing the model’s internal variability with estimated observed variability can be applied.

Kick-off for the projects IS-ENES3 and ESiWACE2

On January 1, 2019, the two infrastructure projects IS-ENES3 and ESiWACE2 were launched at DKRZ. Both projects are funded by the EU for four years as part of the Horizon2020 program. They complement each other in terms of content and seek to jointly contribute to the establishment of a sustainable infrastructure for Earth system modeling in Europe.

SC’18: Mistral on rank 62 of the TOP500 list

On November, 12th, during the 30th Supercomputing Conference (SC'18), the latest list of the five hundred most powerful supercomputers was released. DKRZ's supercomputer Mistral is on rank 62 and remains Germany's sixth strongest HPC system. Looking at the storage capacity of the data centers, Mistral ranks fourth worldwide. On the I/O list of the five hundred most powerful storage systems, which was released during the conference on November, 14th, Mistral is still on rank 10.

Preview: DKRZ@SC18

Up to 10,000 participants are expected to attend the 30th Supercomputing Conference (SC'18) in Dallas, USA, November 11-16. The SC'18 is the largest conference in the field of High Performance Computing (HPC). In addition to a diverse conference and workshop program, it also offers an exhibition on which the DKRZ will present itself at booth #217.

Scalable algorithms for weather and climate prediction

The second phase of the project ESCAPE will start from October 1, 2018 for three years within the European framework Horizon 2020 "Transition to Exascale Computing". ESCAPE stands for "Energy-efficient Scalable Algorithms for Weather and Climate Prediction at Exascale". The successor project ESCAPE-2 aims to develop extreme-scale and energy-efficient methods for weather and climate prediction.

DKRZ – Partner of the Climate Week ("Klimawoche")

From September 23 to 30, 2018 Hamburg will be hosting the 10th and so far biggest edition of the Climate Week ("Klimawoche"), an event that attracted up to 350,000 visitors in previous years. DKRZ is one out of 200 Climate Week partners comprising companies, organizations and associations that are all committed to building a climate-friendly and sustainable city. The opening speech will be given by the Climate Week’s honorary patron Albert II, Prince of Monaco. In addition to the traditional educational program there will be a theme park and a stage program at the Lattenplatz, complemented by a variety of presentations and a diverse cultural program.

Stefan Heinzel

We are shocked by the sudden passing of our colleague and friend Stefan Heinzel. In addition to being the director of the Garching Computing Centre (today: Max Planck Computing and Data Facility MPCDF), Stefan Heinzel also served as technical director of DKRZ in the years 2006-2009 and was responsible for the advancement of our high-performance computer infrastructure.

DKRZ becomes member of the NCL Advisory Panel

At the first meeting of the newly founded NCL Advisory Panel at the NCAR in Boulder / USA on August 2 and 3, 2018, Karin Meier-Fleischer became the only non-US member of the board on behalf of DKRZ.

International Summer School

The DKRZ’s expert knowledge was in high demand at this year’s International Summer School from 9th to 13th July 2018 in Lecce, Southern Italy.

Just published: The DKRZ yearbook

The yearbook of DKRZ for the years 2016-2017 was published end of July 2018 and shows a good profile of all the activities at DKRZ. It summerizes the results of important completed projects and takes a look at ongoing and newly started projects.

Mistral on rank 55 of TOP500 list

On the opening day of the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), which took place in Frankfurt from June 24 to 28, the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers was traditionally published. The HPC system Mistral at the DKRZ is, two years after it was put up in operation, listed on rank 55 and is Germany's sixth largest supercomputer.

Climate Globe exhibit and "meermenschen" at Planetarium Hamburg

In the upcoming weeks, DKRZ’s Climate Globe will be on display in the foyer of the Planetarium Hamburg. The globe will be accessible to the public, allowing planetarium visitors to choose from and have a look at a diverse range of climate visualizations. At the same time, the planetarium shows the photo exhibition "meermenschen".

Julian Kunkel takes on junior-professorship in Reading

Dr. Julian Kunkel, former member of the research group "Scientific Computing" at the DKRZ, has accepted a junior-professorship at the beginning of April as a lecturer in computer science at the University of Reading, Great Britain.