Climate change is expected to have far reaching impacts on human and natural systems during the 21stcentury. To guide policy decisions on climate change adaptation and mitigation, there is a need for developing new types of climate information systems that can provide timely information on regional and local impacts of climate change. The European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) programme aims towards this by developing high precision digital twins (DT) of the Earth. We present here the overview of one of the two first priority DTs, Climate Change Adaptation DT. The Climate DT will encompass a pre-exascale climate information system that can support climate change adaptation efforts.

The Climate DT harnesses two different kilometer-scale Earth-system models (ESMs), ICON and IFS-FESOM/NEMO. The models will be adapted to two EuroHPC pre-exascale computing systems: LUMI that is currently in operation in Kajaani, Finland, and Mare Nostrum 5 that will be available during 2023 in Barcelona, Spain.

The Climate DT introduces the idea of a generic state vector (GSV), which is evolved by the ESMs and streamed to applications. This enables the ESMs to work at an unprecedented scale (multi-decadal simulations on 5km or finer global meshes) and thus improves the fidelity of the information the models provide as well as its relevance for the users.  This approach also creates the basis for an information system that can scale across an unlimited number of applications and enable interactivity during the future phases of DestinE.

Use cases from different impact sectors are implemented within Climate DT as applications that operate on the streamed GSV. The Climate DT will explore five use cases which will provide information on (1) wind energy supply and demand, (2) wildfire risk and emissions, (3) river flows, (4) hydrometeorological extreme events, and (5) heat stress in urban environments. Additional applications operating on the GSV include a quality assessment and uncertainty quantification framework, used for monitoring and evaluation of the GSV. This framework will utilize observational operators to evaluate the GSV against observational data, and in so doing enable the use of tools from numerical weather prediction for quality assessment and observation-based model tuning.

In this presentation, we will give an overview of the Climate DT, describing the objectives for the first phase, technical design of the DT, and the progress made so far. The use cases and the new possibilities provided by the streaming of the GSV are discussed in more detail by Doblas-Reyes et al., and the development of the digital infrastructure for Climate DT by Narayanappa et al.

How to cite: Kontkanen, J., Acosta, M., Bretonnière, P.-A., Castrillo, M., Davini, P., Doblas-Reyes, F., Früh, B., von Hardenberg, J., Jung, T., Järvinen, H., Keller, J., Klocke, D., Niemelä, S., Stevens, B., Thober, S., and Manninen, P.: Climate Digital Twin to support climate change adaptation efforts, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13018, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13018, 2023.

This presentation gives an overview of the work undertaken at ECMWF, in the  Destination Earth initiative of the European Comission, to build the global continuous component of the Weather-induced and Geophysical Extremes Digital Twin (Extremes DT) of the Earth. The Extremes DT aims to forecast and monitor extreme weather, globally, at a range of around 5 days, with unprecedented fidelity.

The Extremes DT utilizes the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System cycle 48r1, with the Tco2559 grid, which has a horizontal resolution of 4.5 km. Our evaluation strategy is based on both 5-day forecasts of extreme weather cases and forecasts initialized daily over one summer and winter seasons. The performance of these simulations is compared to that of ECMWF’s operational deterministic 9km forecasts, using the following metrics: forecast skill as compared to the operational analysis or the observations, and ability to capture extreme weather events.

The results show a clear added-value of higher resolution for near-surface fields and the predicted precipitation amounts in regions of high orography. However, some aspects of the forecasts, which were initially degraded, have required additional developments and tunings. For instance, the atmospheric circulation over the Tibetan plateau has a clear dependence on time-step and resolution, which is linked to the treatment of the mean and sub-grid orography, as well as the representation of orographic gravity waves. Additionally, temperature biases in the lower troposphere in the Tropics are likely due to the sensitivity of moist physics to the model time-step. We will present the choices made to reduce those biases. 

This work can offer valuable insights into strategies for evaluating and improving kilometric-scale Earth System Models.

How to cite: Vannière, B., Sandu, I., Gascon, E., Forbes, R., Polichtchouk, I., Van Niekerk, A., Suetzl, B., Diamantakis, M., Bechtold, P., and Balsamo, G.: Towards a Digital Twin of the Earth: ECMWF's effort to build a Kilometre-scale Earth System Model, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6365, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6365, 2023.

Destination Earth (DE) On-Demand Extremes Digital Twin (DT) (DE_330_MF) offers configurable digital twin engines for forecasting environmental extremes at a sub-km scale. DE_330_MF aims at providing an on-demand workflow with co-design of high resolution predictions about extreme weather events combined with decision making support for impact sectors including hydrology, air quality and energy meteorology, with the use of a physics-based and data driven model system and computationally-intensive data-flow organised on the EuroHPC high performance computing platform. 

The DE_330_MF core software system is developed in four parts. Firstly, code adaptation needed for running on hybrid CPU and accelerator architectures will be done. Here, our most computationally intensive parts will be optimised for running on accelerators at the end of the first phase. Secondly, our modelling system is being adapted for running on a sub-km grid scale in an efficient on-demand setup. During phase 1 we primarily use operationally and pre-operationally mature components. Tailor-made modules targeted on impact modelling (e.g. wind energy) will be implemented as well. Thirdly, we work on post-processing of the model output, so that this can be distilled into a limited number of variables essential for end-users including uncertainty quantification for these variables. The approaches will be tailor-made for the specific targeted types of extreme events. Triggers for detecting extreme events are being developed as part of the post-processing work. Fourthly, and very importantly, we are designing and developing workflow management tools and scripting for the core software. Input and output data are also managed, with a particular focus on the exploitation of using high-density observations in high-resolution weather forecasting and verification. Overall we aim at running a hectometric scale On-Demand Extremes DT with a typical resolution of 750 or 500 m, exploring a finer resolution of up to 200 m for special applications where it is meaningful. In the first phase, capability demonstration is the focus by examining a range of carefully selected high-impact cases for the three above-mentioned impact areas, as well as other applications such as agriculture. The goal here is to explore the added values with co-designing workflow combining the on-demand, event- or user-driven solutions with weather forecasting on the one hand, and impact sectors on the other hand, in an integrated value chain for decision-making support. In this effort, containerised solutions, including one hydrological and two air quality models, will run next (one way coupling) to the on-demand extremes DT.

This work is funded by the EU under agreement DE_330_MF between ECMWF and Météo-France. The on-demand capability proposed by the Météo-France led international partnership is a key component of the weather-induced extremes digital twin, which ECMWF will deliver in the first phase of Destination Earth, launched by the EC.

How to cite: Randriamampianina, R. and the On-Demand Extremes Digital Twin Team: Destination Earth On-Demand Extremes Digital Twin, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6122, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6122, 2023.

Destination Earth is an operational service under the lead of the European Commission being implemented jointly by ESA, ECMWF and EUMETSAT.

The presentation will provide insights into the EUMETSAT Data Lake Service component of the Destination Earth undertaking.

The objective of the European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative is to deploy several highly accurate digital replicas of the Earth (Digital Twins) in order to monitor and simulate natural as well as human activities and their interactions, to develop and test “what-if” scenarios that would enable more sustainable developments and support European environmental policies. DestinE addresses the challenge to manage and make accessible the sheer amount of data generated by the Digital Twins and observation data located at external sites such as the ones depicted in the figure below. This data will be made available fast enough and in a format ready to support analysis scenarios proposed by the DestinE service users.

Figure:  DestinE Data Sources (green) and Stakeholders (orange)

The “DestinE Data Lake” (DEDL) is one of the three Destination Earth components interacting with:

• the Digital Twin Engine (DTE), which runs the simulation models, under ECMWF responsibility
• the DestinE Core Service Platform (DESP), which represents the user entry point to the DestinE services and data, under ESA responsibility

The DestinE Data Lake (DEDL) fulfils the storage and access requirements for any data that is offered to DestinE users. It provides users with a seamless access to the datasets, regardless of data type and location. Furthermore, the DEDL supports big data processing services, such as near-data processing to maximize throughput and service scalability. The data lake is built inter alia upon existing data lakes such as Copernicus DIAS, ESA, EUMETSAT, ECMWF as well as complementary data from diverse sources like federated data spaces, in-situ or socio-economic data. The DT Data Warehouse is a sub-component of the DEDL which stores relevant subsets of the output from each  digital twin (DT) execution being powered by ECMWFs Hyper-Cube service.

How to cite: Duatis Juarez, J., Schick, M., Puechmaille, D., Stoicescu, M., and Saulyak, B.: Destination Earth Data Lake, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-7177, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-7177, 2023.

Destination Earth (DestinE) Initiative is a programme of the European Commission’s DG-CNECT directorate for developing and exploiting a highly accurate digital model of the Earth, with the objectives of monitoring and predicting the interactions between natural phenomena and human activities. This initiative will support the European Commission to achieve the sustainable development objectives and will contribute to the European Green Deal and Digital Strategy. Along with the two entrusted entities ECMWF and EUMETSAT, ESA contributes in DestinE development and implementation. Concretely, ESA is responsible of developing the platform serving as single access point to users to DestinE ecosystem. DestinE Core Service Platform (DESP) integrates and operates an open ecosystem of services (also referred to as DESP Framework) to support DestinE-data exploitation and information sharing for the benefit of DestinE users and Third-Party entities. The industrial activity presented here corresponds to the starting point for DESP development. It includes the setup and definition of DESP Framework, as well as the implementation of key essential services such as user identification, authentication, and authorization service; infrastructure as a service with storage, network, and CPU/GPU capabilities; data access and retrieval service, in particular from the DestinE Data Lake operated by EUMETSAT, as it is the backbone for the data generated by ECMWF’s Digital Twin Engine; data traceability and harmonization services; basic software suite service for local data exploitation; data and software catalogue services; and 2D/3D data visualization service.

How to cite: Sanz-Morère, I. and Hintze, K.: DestinE Core Service Platform Framework, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1370, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1370, 2023.

The DestinE Use Cases Project, executed by a Consortium led by RHEA Group with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Trust-IT, regards the selection and implementation of a first set of Use Cases meant to demonstrate the ability of the DestinE infrastructure in general, and the DestinE Service Platform (DESP) in particular, to provide actionable information and decision support to its end-users. The project aims also at actively engaging the broad community of DestinE stakeholders, gathering their requirements, and encouraging their direct involvement and guidance in the continuous evolution of the DestinE infrastructure towards the future Phases of the Initiative.

The establishment of a strong (both in terms of numbers of members and interactions) and vibrant DestinE User Community seems crucial in informing the successful and well targeted development and initial operations of the DESP as well as guiding the evolution and sustainability of the platform in later phases of DestinE to respond to the priorities set by European and International policy frameworks. The aim is to create a network where the continuous interactions amongst users/developers as well as stakeholders/partners will enhance the development and improvement of DestinE capabilities, but also catalyse cross-sectorial collaborations. This community will be cοmprised by multiple and diverse types of stakeholders including scientists, policy makers, industry representatives and the general public which are split in Communities of Practice per Use Case (i.e. groups of members who share a common interest in a particular domain area or scientific topic).

The community building activities follow a step-wise methodology to define Why (the objectives), What (the content), to Whom (the target/ stakeholder groups), Where (all channels and tools) and How (i.e. strategies, tools and channels suitable for each group). It also includes an action plan (When) along with clear quantitative targets and monitoring mechanisms, allowing also for ad-hoc and on-demand actions.

An open, transparent and inclusive invitation process is established that aims to embrace new members and various levels of participation. Formal community governance structure appoints key instances required for successful community management while standards and rules define how members participate and interact with one another encouraging for contributions made by all.

A DestinE Community Portal will be launched which intends to be the central hub for prospective users and downstream developers to interact with the initiative. It will showcase open calls for DestinE use cases and showcase funded ones and a requirements gathering area to allow the community to help co-develop solutions. It will also contain an early-stage Marketplace page of datasets, tools and apps, a developer section, a catalogue of DestinE-related projects, tools and results, and an e-Learning platform. For outreach, a “DestinE Roadshow” series will promote DestinE in various events, webinars and policy dialogues.

How to cite: Romeo, A., Patruno, J., Stylianidis, E., Karachaliou, E., Bakousi, A., Smith, Z., and Carrillo, R.: Towards building a vibrant DestinE User Community, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12669, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12669, 2023.

In liberalized electricity markets, the planning and operation of the electricity grids, often, is done by private companies under the control of a public authority. Following their mandates, the European transmission system operators for electricity implement, among other analyses, national grid extension plans, the Europe-wide Ten-Year Network Development Plan and the European Resources Adequacy Assessment. To achieve evidence-based decision-making, they rely on the best-available meteorological and/or climatological information on a variety of scales, from the local distribution grid level to the European transmission system, and from short-term forecasts for the operation to climate scenarios for investment decisions. Here, the capabilities of the new DestinE Digital Twin on climate adaption can make a significant impact. It is expected that the explicit modelling of physical processes on the storm- and cloud-resolving scale also leads to a more realistic and accurate representation of the solar and wind resources. This offers great opportunities for improved energy system modelling and opens the door for new innovative approaches for adding the analysis of climate information into standard modelling workflows applied in the energy sector. However, there is a lack of knowledge about available meteorological data sets, their characteristics and the implications of using different data sets for grid planning and adequacy assessment activities in the user community. Standardized tools and methods to add the analysis of climate change and/or climate uncertainty to user workflows rarely exist. This hinders energy system modelers to make full use of the available meteorological information and, consequently, prevents users from tapping the full potential of the data. As energy systems become more dependent on weather, and as the uncertainties about climate change impacts rise, the operation and planning of integrated energy systems becomes an increasingly complex task.

Aim of this presentation is the introduction of a DestinE Use Case for the energy sector jointly implemented by DLR, the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) and Aarhus University. This Use Case will develop a representative Demonstrator exemplarily showcasing the use of climate information in the energy sector for grid planning and resources adequacy assessment purposes, and equip the user community with the tools, methods and the knowledge needed to ensure the safe and clean supply of energy in Europe in accordance with the Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement and the European Union’s “Fit for 55” goals.

How to cite: Schyska, B., Ceglarz, A., Hayez, L., Kies, A., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., and Medjroubi, W.: Adapting Energy Systems to a Changing Climate - A Destination Earth Use Case, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13132, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13132, 2023.

Coastal deltas are extremely susceptible to flooding from sea, rivers, heavy rain and even more severe combinations thereof. Many coastal deltas are densely populated, and flood risk forms a serious threat that will likely increase in the future. There are two main mechanisms to reduce the devastating impacts of these floods; (1) adaptation to the increasing climate risks and (2) improved early warning and emergency response. We will present the Destination Earth digital twin on coastal compound flood inundation forecasting and climate adaptation.

This digital replica of the delta will connect DE data to impact models and will generate user oriented actionable output. High-resolution meteorological forecasts and regular updated climate scenarios form the input for regional coastal and inland models that provide boundary conditions for local models. Local models are used for simulation of small-scale hydrological processes, high-resolution 2D compound flood inundation and impact on population and buildings.  A flexible data post-processing routine, to be co-designed with the end-users, will be implemented to translates model results into actionable context-specific information. It will, for example, produce flood inundation and risk maps as well as other user-requested indicators. For the climate adaptation component, the system will allow users to run WhatIf scenarios to explore adaptation measures. The data products will be disseminated to the users via Web-API, WEB-mapping service or through (S)FTP, depending on the users’ preferences.

We will outline and demonstrate our digital twin that serves both flood impact reduction mechanisms, i.e. climate adaptation and forecasting extremes.  We will highlight end users’ needs and requirement that are involved through co-creation/design of the service.

How to cite: Weerts, A., Yan, K., and Sperna Weiland, F.: Compound flood forecasting and climate adaptation Destination Earth digital twin, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-9262, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-9262, 2023.

Extreme air pollution events of high concentrated surface ozone (O₃) or particulate matter (PM) pose a lethal threat to humans worldwide. To investigate air quality under extreme atmospheric situations, the DestinE-AQ use case develops a comprehensive user interface that enables high resolution air quality forecasts and analysis by combining numerical simulations, machine learning approaches and observations. The core of the system encloses access to the open database of global air quality observations (i.e. the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report data base, TOAR), innovative machine learning workflows (e.g. MLAir, IntelliO3-ts) including downscaling modules, and high resolution numerical simulations using the state of the art chemistry transport model EURAD-IM (EURopean Air pollution Dispersion- Inverse Model). The aspired air quality forecasts and analyses will dynamically be driven by the DestinE Digital Twin for weather extremes. Thus, the pursued horizontal resolution of the air quality simulations is identical to the resolution of the DestinE digital twin (< 1 km²).

To provide reliable air quality analyses, the system makes use of observational data in both the machine learning tools and EURAD-IM by enabling 3D-var data assimilation. While focusing on Europe, the system will demonstrate how observations and physics-based and data-driven models can be woven together to achieve enhanced realism and finer resolution of air pollution information and thus provide better support to decision makers. The system is complemented by an efficient ensemble module that enables emission scenario simulations to test and develop air pollution mitigation strategies for future extreme events under realistic conditions. The development of the user interface is done in close cooperation with the German and North Rhine-Westphalian Environment Agencies to meet the end users’ needs. The system will provide detailed information about air quality, its underlying chemical processes, the influence of meteorological extreme events, and the impacts of anthropogenic emissions on air quality. Hence, it will also serve the scientific community to answer questions on air quality and atmospheric chemical processes under extreme weather conditions that are expected to increase in future. To allow for the investigation of the human impact of extreme events, the DestinE-AQ focuses on the key air pollutants PM_2.5, nitrogen oxides (NO_x), and O₃ in the planetary boundary layer. The potential combination of the system with socio-economic and medical models will be evaluated.

How to cite: Lange, A. C., Franke, P., Schröder, S., Kleinert, F., Selke, N., Friese, E., and Schultz, M. G.: DestinE-AQ: High-resolution air quality forecast, analysis, and scenario simulations coupled to the Digital Twin of DestinE, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15975, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15975, 2023.