Extreme climatic phenomena are no longer exceptional. Forest fires, prolonged droughts, floods, or heatwaves are part of a new reality that forces us to anticipate rather than react. It is precisely in this area that the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – National Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) is concentrating a large part of its efforts.
The center currently participates in 21 research projects that use supercomputing to predict these episodes, understand their impacts, and develop tools to help administrations, emergency services, and companies make decisions before risks materialize. In total, these initiatives mobilize more than 21 million euros for the BSC, mainly from European programs, the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Generalitat, and various space agencies.
The objective is to transform millions of meteorological, environmental, and socioeconomic data into useful information. From risk maps and early warning systems to simulations capable of predicting how a fire will evolve, which infrastructures may be affected, or which groups will be most vulnerable to a heatwave.
From fire to health
One of the main lines of work focuses on forest fires. The EUBURN-RISK project develops models that simultaneously simulate fire propagation and smoke displacement, while MEDEWSA combines observations, climate models, and artificial intelligence to generate early warnings for fires, droughts, floods, or extreme heat episodes, especially in the Mediterranean basin.
Research also extends to the energy system. With PRISMAS, the BSC studies how climatic phenomena can affect renewable energy production and the electricity transmission network in Spain, while Destination Earth, one of the European Union's major digital initiatives, develops digital twins of the planet to simulate different climate scenarios with great precision.
The projects also cover the Arctic and public health. ICEBERG analyzes the combined effects of pollution and climate change on vulnerable ecosystems such as Greenland, Iceland, and Svalbard. In parallel, IDAlert and IDExtremes investigate how extreme phenomena can favor the emergence of climate-sensitive diseases, while CLIMATICAT focuses on Catalonia to study the effects of climate change on the physical and mental health of the population.
The role of MareNostrum 5
At the heart of all these initiatives is MareNostrum 5, one of Europe's most advanced supercomputing infrastructures. Its capacity to process enormous volumes of information allows for the execution of models of a complexity unattainable with conventional systems and the exploration of multiple future scenarios.
Extreme climatic phenomena caused losses of nearly 822,000 million euros in the European Union between 1980 and 2024
This computing power allows going beyond meteorological prediction. Researchers can estimate how a fire will evolve, where the smoke will disperse, which infrastructures will be most exposed, or what measures can reduce its impact. In short, turning supercomputing into a tool for prevention and adaptation in the face of one of the great global challenges of the coming decades.
According to the European Environment Agency, extreme climatic phenomena caused losses of nearly 822,000 million euros in the European Union between 1980 and 2024, a quarter of which occurred in the last four years alone. A context that reinforces the role of centers like the BSC, from where Barcelona aims to turn research and technology into useful tools for building more resilient territories.