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NEC supercomputers help bring better insight to the mechanism of global warming
Global recognition that human activities cause global warming
When the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, considerable number of researchers and governments were not fully convinced that human activities had an impact on global warming.
However in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had reached the consensus that global warming is a scientific fact. According to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, "Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations."
Global warming projection experiments based on climate change models under the same conditions have been performed by various research groups around the world. The results by every group indicate that warming cannot be explained by natural phenomena alone.
The IPCC defines the phrase "very likely" as the assessed likelihood of more than 90%. In the wake of these findings, it is expected that full-scale measures will have to be taken to combat global warming.
For such efforts as shown above, the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Contributions to IPCC
The Japanese groups of global warming projection have conducted the most detailed simulation of all and have played advanced and central roles in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
In particular, the work performed by the Earth Simulator of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) has been essential in such contribution.
The NEC supercomputer attained higher accuracy on global warming projection
The Earth Simulator was introduced in 2002 as an instrument to clarify and to project climatic change on a global scale. Manufactured by NEC, the Earth Simulator was at the time of its debut the fastest supercomputer in the world. Six years later, the Earth Simulator is still active as world-class instrument in the field of earth science.
How is a super computer used in climate projection research?
To project climate change it is the first necessary step to create a virtual earth on a computer. The atmosphere and the oceans are divided into a fine-grained grid. The grid is then used to compute average cloud cover and temperature. (The size of a grid is its resolution.) The second step is to incorporate the concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 expected in the future. From there it is possible to compute the earth's future climate. The amount of data involved in such a calculation is enormous. The higher the performance of a super computer, the better the resolution and the better the prediction will be over the long term.
Over the years, the resolution of the ultra-fast Earth Simulator has improved from calculations based on 300 kilometers in every horizontal direction to 100 kilometers* or 100,001,000 grid squares. That translates into hundreds of times more computing power.
In 2004, research groups of the Center for Climate System Research (CCSR) of the Tokyo University, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), JAMSTEC, and the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) adopted a unique perspective by using the Earth Simulator to project global warming as far ahead as the year 2100.
*Atmosphere-Ocean Coupled Model
In addition, the Earth Simulator enables a super-high resolution of 20 kilometers in each horizontal direction for a global atmosphere model.
