The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) continues to position itself as a world leader in climate matters and has obtained a total of five million euros from European funds this year to continue researching on this issue.
The resources obtained from the EU will serve to finance five new research projects, focused on studying the effects of climate change on health, society, and the environment. Currently, the BSC is working on 56 projects that impact this field, generating information for key socioeconomic sectors especially affected by climate variability, such as agriculture, energy, water management, and health.
Specifically, the infrastructure located in the old chapel of Torre Girona, at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), allows modeling the global climate, both past and future, as well as proposing various scenarios, such as what its evolution will be if polluting emissions are mitigated, its variation depending on the degree to which it is done... The supercomputer's capabilities also allow analyzing all this data and extracting only the necessary information to draw conclusions. All these mechanisms help scientists predict future climate conditions and facilitate decision-making to advise on measures that can mitigate them.
"The BSC has been conducting research in climate services for years. Over time and with the interdisciplinary approach adopted, which mixes technology, climate science, and social sciences in the same environment, it has become a key player at the European level," says Francisco Doblas, ICREA professor and director of the Earth Sciences department of the supercomputer. For the researcher, the resources obtained from the EU represent "a unique opportunity" for the BSC. "They will allow us to continue researching at the highest level in how to develop global climate models that can meet the needs of a wide range of users," he adds.
The Earth Sciences department of the BSC was born in 2006 with the aim of better understanding the behavior of the Earth system, focusing its research work on atmospheric processes and climate change modeling. With more than 100 people, it is a unique unit in Spain and has become an international benchmark in the fields of air quality, climate prediction and environmental services.