National climate simulator opened at Australian National University

CANBERRA, June 25 (Xinhua) -- The Australian National University (ANU) has opened a new national climate research facility to provide better information on climate change and extreme weather events.

Funded by the federal government, the 7.6-million-Australian dollar ( 5.3-million-U.S. dollar) Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) is the largest computer modeling system in the Southern Hemisphere.

The National Research Infrastructure (NRI) facility will bring together researchers from ANU, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Bureau of Meteorology and top Australian and international universities to provide better information on climate change and extreme weather events.

Andy Hogg, inaugural director of ACCESS, said the facility's modeling capability could power international weather forecasting and climate projection.

"This will not only mean more powerful and insightful research, but hopefully better decisions for the pressing challenges and acute stresses, or nation and world face, including changing climate," he said in a statement on Friday.

"We are creating an 'open source' weather, climate and Earth system modeling powerhouse that anyone across the globe will be able to access and that will deliver better outcomes for everyone."

By combining ocean, sea ice and land surface models with chemical and biological models, researchers at the facility can predict weather and climate conditions decades in the future.

According to ANU, it is powered by Gadi, the Southern Hemisphere's most powerful supercomputer, which is located at ANU's Canberra campus.

"ACCESS-NRI will give Australia the ability to focus on global climate as well as the weather and climate of the Australasian region and the Southern Hemisphere," acting Vice-Chancellor Keith Nugent said.

"It will also build the capability and capacity of Australian researchers and technicians in climate science, observations and high-performance computational modeling."