Two months ago, from October 14 to 18, Wageningen University and Research (WUR) hosted the nextGEMS Hazard Hackathon. Nearly 80 participants from 17 countries across three continents traveled to the Netherlands for this unique event.

A New Approach to Collaboration

Unlike previous hackathons that divided participants based on the nextGEMS working groups Storms and Land, Storms and Oceans, Storms and Radiation, and Storms and Society, this event took a fresh approach. Participants were organized into challenge groups focused on specific hazard-related topics, such as efficient data handling, the energy sector, fire weather, and extreme precipitation and temperature. These groups delivered remarkable insights and visualizations. Take a look for yourself:

Highlights of the Challenges

Efficient Data Handling Challenge

Led by Lukas Brunner and Olivia Martius, this group focused on providing global extreme indices for the HEALPix zoom level 9. They developed highly detailed plots, such as a comparison of surface temperature fields from the ICON and IFS models. One visualization revealed significant discrepancies of the annual maximum temperatures (txx) between the two models that were especially pronounced in North America and Australia. These results are likely due to differences in how the models simulate land-atmosphere interactions.

Energy Production Challenge

Coordinated by Menno Veerman and Edgar Dolores-Tesillos, this team analyzed weather-dependent energy production, in particular solar and wind energy. They explored the spatial patterns of each of these around the world and found that there is more capacity to produce wind energy over the oceans than on land, and a larger solar energy capacity in regions closer to the equator. In a case study approach, the team also discovered distinct spatial patterns of solar and wind energy production across Spain. Additionally, the researchers progressed a trend analysis for the region of Spain, to assess how the energy production capacity might change over time.

Fire Weather Challenge

The team led by Ralf Hand and Chiel van Heerwaarden focused on evaluating the potential of nextGEMS models to simulate realistic fire-prone weather conditions. They also sought to identify the factors driving potential changes in wildfire risk in the future. During their work, the team successfully modeled fire weather indices (FWI) as used by DWD, and also observed that humidity trends remain constant over time. However, they noted differences in the calculations produced by the IFS and ICON models, which require further investigation. Following this hackathon, the scientists plan to rerun these calculations using higher-resolution data to better understand how coarse versus high-resolution data impacts the results.

Extreme Precipitation and Temperature Challenge

Jonathan Wille, Jasper Denissen, and Birgit Suetzl led the extreme precipitation and temperatures and urban heat challenge. This group examined the simulation of temperature and precipitation extremes at different levels, from the global to the local scale. The participants explored various topics within this broader frame, including the visualization of urban heat extremes, future changes in extreme precipitation behavior, and the connection between precipitation extremes and river runoff in alpine regions.  They found that changes in the frequency of heavy precipitation events depend on the rarity of the event and the modeling approach. For instance, a 1-in-3-year event occurs 5% more frequently in IFS simulations and 20% more frequently in ICON simulations. The researchers also discovered that these changes vary by the region in which the precipitation events occur, with heavy precipitation events in the Northern Hemisphere becoming more frequent at locations further away from the equator.

Engaging Side Events and Workshops

In addition to working on their group challenges, participants engaged in several enriching side events. Paolo Davini and Matteo Nurisso from CNR-ISAC introduced the model evaluation framework AQUA, developed as part of the Destination Earth initiative (DestinE). During a workshop on energy storylines conducted by Eulàlia Baulenas and Dragana Bojovic, participants debated which nextGEMS data would be relevant for energy industry stakeholders and how the project could help them make more informed decisions. Experts like Nuria Sanchez from Iberdrola and Hester Biemans from WUR shared captivating insights on topics such as renewable energy and food security.

The Role of Hackathons and Collaboration in Climate Research

On the final day, the Storms and Society working group presented their ongoing efforts in knowledge co-production and communication strategies. Their outputs aim to bridge research and policy-making through storylines, policy briefs, and accessible Science Explainers that communicate complex research to the public in simple terms.

Hackathons like this Hazard Hackathon foster collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing, as emphasized by Bjorn Stevens, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. Stevens highlighted how nextGEMS contributes to broader climate modeling projects, including EERIE, WarmWorld, and DestinE. Thanks to the efforts of the nextGEMS community, DestinE successfully launched its system in June 2023, with its data now accessible to the nextGEMS community and the wider academic community via a newly released DestinE platform.

Inclusive Initiatives at the Event

However, not only scientific input and outcomes were at the focus of the Hazard Hackathon. The organizers also prioritized inclusivity by offering pronoun stickers for all attendees and rainbow lanyards for LGBTQIA2S+ community members and allies. These thoughtful gestures aimed to foster respect and acceptance for the diverse gender identities and sexual orientations within the nextGEMS community. For further reading on supporting the Queer community, attendees were encouraged to consult the HRC report on Being an LGBTQ+ Ally or explore resources provided by the EGU Pride group, which supports Queer individuals in geosciences and their allies.

The Future of nextGEMS: Transitioning Beyond the Project

Following three years of intensive knowledge creation, hacking, and collaboration, the nextGEMS project is now transitioning into its final phase. During the recent gathering, Bjorn Stevens initiated a discussion about the future of the nextGEMS community and its potential evolution beyond the project’s official timeline. As part of this dialogue, he announced an unprecedented event: the World Climate Research Programme Global KM-scale Hackathon.

This groundbreaking global hackathon is scheduled to take place from May 12–17, 2025, and will be hosted by multiple climate modeling institutes across the globe, including locations in Australia, Brazil, Argentina, China, Europe, India, Japan, North America, and South Africa. This unique, multi-continental approach highlights the collaborative and inclusive spirit of the climate research community.

To stay updated on the nextGEMS project and future events, including the final nextGEMS Hackathon, visit our news section and follow our social media channels.

As part of the nextGEMS production stage for our high-resolution Earth system simulations, a new hackathon edition has been launched. The fifth nextGEMS hackathon is currently taking place in the central Netherlands, in the city of Wageningen, renowned for its university and vibrant student life.

From October 14th to 18th, 2024, more than 80 scientists, researchers, students, and other representatives from across Europe, North America and East Asia gather for the „Hazard Hackathon“ at Wageningen University. Here, they can collaborate, network, and tackle pressing challenges related to fire weather, precipitation, urban heat extremes, and more.

Participants arriving to the registration desk. Credits: nextGEMS team

On the first day, Chiel Van Heerwaarden, a researcher and co-organizer from Wageningen University, kicked off the event with a welcoming speech and general information for the week to come. Following, scientists Dyvia Praturi from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Xabier Pedruzo from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) provided updates on the available ICON and IFS Earth system models‘ simulations.

Praturi encouraged participants to seek guidance and answers to their questions about the Easy Gems platform, while Pedruzo highlighted a recently published research paper detailing the advancements in IFS simulations.

During the opening session, Jasper Denissen from ECMWF introduced the audience to the Catchment-based Macro-scale Floodplain (Ca-Ma-Flood) model. He explained how its hydrological forecasts are being used in nextGEMS simulations and mentioned some of the Ca-Ma-Flood output variables that participants can work with, such as river discharge and flooded fractions.

Before the first day concluded with an exciting ice-breaker session that included some delicious local finger food and a round of pool and table tennis, Edgar Dolores-Testillos from the University of Bern presented the innovative structure of this hackathon. Unlike in the previous events, this time participants will have the opportunity to choose from five defined challenges: efficient data handling, fire weather, precipitation and temperature extremes and urban heat, energy production, and a „wild card“ challenge encompassing topics like tropical cyclones and extreme precipitation. Nevertheless, he emphasized that participants are also free to pursue their own or collective interests during the upcoming days of the hacking marathon.

Participants selecting teams to work in the different prepared challenges. Credits: nextGEMS team

Atmospheric turbulence refers to the irregular, chaotic flow of air in the Earth’s atmosphere. Although the majority of flows in nature are turbulent, our understanding of this phenomena remains surprisingly limited. Moreover, the complex and dynamic nature of atmospheric turbulence within the Earth’s atmosphere poses significant challenges to scientists. 

Jakub Nowak and Marta Wacławczyk explain their scientific work on atmospheric turbulence in one of the research videos developed by Latest Thinking. This video is based on the study „Detecting Nonequilibrium States in Atmospheric Turbulence“, in which scientists Holger Siebert and Szymon P. Malinowski contributed as well. The authors shed light on the temporal changes of turbulence and its implications for atmospheric modeling. In fact, before this study, changes of turbulence were only an assumption based on controlled experiments. Specifically, the authors focused on the behavior of turbulence within stratocumulus clouds over the ocean. 

Stratocumulus clouds are low-level clouds, varying in color from bright white to dark grey, and are the most common clouds on Earth. They have well-defined bases with varying shades, often featuring gaps but sometimes merging together. Typically, they form from a layer of stratus clouds breaking up and signal an upcoming weather change.

Marta Wacławczyk is an Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw’s. With a PhD from Gdańsk and a rich background in fluid flow mechanics, she brings extensive expertise in the statistical analysis and modeling of turbulentflows. Jakub Nowak, on the other hand, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Warsaw’s. His research, deeply rooted in the properties of turbulence within stratocumulus clouds, reflects his commitment to advancing our understanding of atmospheric dynamics.

Understanding atmospheric turbulence is essential for improving weather prediction models, climate simulations, and aviation safety. Furthermore, by exploring the temporal changes in turbulence within stratocumulus clouds, the work projected in this research video not only advances scientific knowledge, but also holds promise for improving climate modeling and weather prediction.

– model improvements, fascinating insights and new data

The first half of 2023 spawned many new papers connected to the nextGEMS project, which you can read more about in our last blog post. In the second half, from July to December 2023, the nextGEMS community added another four publications to this list. These publications put forth new knowledge on the climate system and the improvement of climate models and decision-making processes. Members of the project also made available data generated in the third cycle of model development within nextGEMS. 

In one of the papers, Brunner and Sippel investigated how to enhance climate models using statistical and machine learning processes. Their insights are a vital step towards shortening the amount of time needed to evaluate the performance and independence of new climate models.

Climate model genealogy aims at understanding structural dependencies and sampling biases in multi-model ensembles. Dependencies and biases can, for example, occur between different model versions or models developed at the same institution as they partially share computer code, algorithms and parametrization schemes. Kuma, Bender and Jönsson looked into these structural similarities of models used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CIMP), identifying 12 different model families. Their findings suggest that using family and ancestry weighting for independent models in multi-model ensembles could improve data on model uncertainty and reduce bias originating from structural similarities between models of the same model family.

Moum et al. worked on understanding the influence of surface wind stress and shear on diurnal deep cycle turbulence at the equatorial cold tongues. Deep cycle turbulence describes the process of mixing the warmer ocean surface water with the colder water of deeper layers. This process plays an important role in climate regulation, effecting the ocean’s capacity to take up heat from the atmosphere.

The work of Baulenas and Bojovic highlights the potential of eliciting information from high-resolution Earth system models in a participatory process to support decision-making in complex matters. Especially tasks like the development of resilient renewable energy systems could benefit from this approach, as shown by the study conducted in Madrid in May 2023.

Finally, Koldunov et al. released a subset of data generated with the ICON and IFS models throughout the third model development cycle.

A comprehensive compilation of publications associated with the project can be found on the nextGEMS Publications page. 

July

August

October

If using our data in a publication, please make sure to use the following sentence in the acknowledgements:
„[XY] was supported by the nextGEMS project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research program (Grant No. 101003470).“

The 5th hackathon of the nextGEMS project is coming up! Join us from 14th to 18th of October 2024 in the dutch town of Wageningen to find out how our models can be applied in the sector of natural hazards.

The event will be organised in cooperation with the Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and the University of Bern and hosted on the WUR campus.

In the spirit of what was written in our proposal, participating scientists, programmers, and other project partners will work in small groups to create new knowledge on a topic. The topics will be related to the four nextGEMS research themes, as well as to natural hazards, such as wildfires and heavy precipitation. We will all explore research questions based on the newest simulations of the IFS and ICON models, identifying bugs and developing improvements. If you haven’t been to a hackathon, have a look at our previous hackathons to get an impression of the atmosphere and collaboration.

Registration

If you are interested in participating in the Hackathon, please register here until the 1st of July, 2024.

The event will charge a EUR 150 participation fee. Once your participation is confirmed, you will also receive the instructions for the payment.

Stipend Application

Once again, we are also opening a call for stipend applications to support the participation of young scientists with a strong interest in climate science or Earth system informatics. The stipend application deadline is 15th June 2024.

For any additional questions, please refer to the event website or contact the nextGEMS project office.

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