TLDR: The Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin, a key component of the European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative, has been shortlisted for the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling. This recognition highlights its pioneering work in delivering high-resolution, multi-decadal climate projections and its role in advancing climate science through high-performance computing.
The European Commission’s ambitious Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative has achieved a significant milestone, with its Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) being shortlisted for the highly esteemed ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling. This prestigious award, recognizing outstanding achievements in high-performance computing (HPC), underscores the groundbreaking capabilities of the Climate DT in addressing the complex challenges of a changing climate.
Launched in 2022, the overarching DestinE initiative aims to construct a comprehensive digital replica of the Earth system by 2030. It is a collaborative effort involving the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), responsible for the digital twins and the Digital Twin Engine; the European Space Agency (ESA), managing the Core Service Platform; and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), tasked with the Data Lake.
The Climate DT, specifically, is designed to provide globally consistent climate information at an unprecedented kilometre-scale resolution. This level of detail is crucial for understanding and predicting the localized impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The system operationalizes multi-decadal climate projections, offering a significant leap forward from traditional climate models. It can produce global projections at 5-10 km resolution and supports ‘what-if’ scenario simulations, such as replaying past events to analyze their potential unfolding in a 2°C warmer world. This capability is powered by advanced atmospheric models like IFS and ocean models like NEMO.
Implemented by CSC – IT Center for Science in collaboration with a wide network of supercomputing centers, climate centers, national meteorological services, and academia across Europe, the Climate DT leverages Europe’s world-class EuroHPC pre-exascale supercomputers, including LUMI, Marenostrum5, Leonardo, and MeluXina. This strategic access to cutting-edge computing power is vital for translating significant European investments in HPC into tangible societal benefits.
The nomination for the Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling, an award worth US$10,000, follows previous accolades for the Climate DT, which received two HPCwire Readers’ Choice Awards last year for Best Scientific Achievement and Best Use of HPC in Science. The prize will be presented in November 2025 at the SC conference in St. Louis, Missouri, a premier international event for high-performance computing.
Also Read:
- Google’s SEEDS AI Revolutionizes Weather Prediction with Enhanced Accuracy and Efficiency
- ASU Pioneers Adaptive AI for Smarter Urban Management
Beyond its computational prowess, the Climate DT is deeply intertwined with artificial intelligence and machine learning. These advanced techniques are integral to its modeling, simulation, and data analysis capabilities, enabling the processing of vast datasets and the execution of complex ‘what-if’ scenarios. The initiative has explicitly mentioned ‘AI in DestinE’ and the kick-off of ‘Machine Learning Demonstrators and Pilot Services using DestinE digital twins’ data,’ underscoring its reliance on AI to achieve its ambitious goals in climate adaptation.
