Our 4th km-scale Hackathon started: what happened on the first day?

March started, and our nextGEMS hackathon too! On Monday 4th, approximately 129 participants arrived at the ravishing building that houses the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-Met), in the port city of Hamburg, in Germany. The 4th km-scale Hackathon, co-organized by three climate science projects (nextGEMS, EERIE, and WarmWorld), welcomed professionals from different scientific backgrounds, levels of expertise and diverse nationalities, representing a variety of institutions.

The hackathon opened up with a set of introductory talks. Bjorn Stevens, welcomed everyone and encouraged the attendants to seize the event as an opportunity to learn from each other. After some logistic information provided by one of the nextGEMS Project Coordinators, Elina Plesca, the updates on the Earth System models used in the nextGEMS and EERIE projects started. Scientific Programmer at the MPI-Met, Dian Putrasahan, talked about how the hackathon could help us understand how smaller scale ocean features like eddies could affect ocean circulation, carbon fluxes and storms. Additionally, one breakout group will explore and gain insights as to why sea-ice holes appear in our simulations.

As part of the Storms & Society segment of the project, researcher Eulàlia Baulenas shared with the audience how this nextGEMS fragment is trying to reduce the gap between climate research and tangible action. Moreover, the team announced the launching of a survey that will contribute to understand knowledge networks and their interactions during the hackathon. It will be available online from Wednesday, March 6th.

On another note, the Hamburg-based science communication company with expertise in Film, Design and IT, Latest Thinking, stressed the importance of transmitting scientific knowledge and research through explanatory videos. Especially, as an effort to reach audiences in the policy-making fora. The hackathon continued with a captivating keynote executed by Daniela Jacobs, meteorologist and Director of the Climate Service Center in Germany (GERICS). She highlighted the importance of relying on and utilizing data already gathered and documented by climate institutions in the completion of new research (more on this talk will be released in a separate blogpost). 

To finish the first hackathon day, the participants enjoyed an “Ice-Breaker” session, where they were able to catch-up and exchange their thoughts about the intense hacking days ahead.