REKLIM - EMCL

REKLIM – Climate Change and Air Quality

Aims and Objectives

The Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM (Regionale Klimaänderungen/Regional climate change) is a consortium of eight research centres within the Helmholtz Association. In this framework combining expertise in regional observations and process studies, coupled with model simulations, the REKLIM initiative intents to improve regional and global climate models, in order to provide a solid basis for climate-related decision support.

EMCL's engagement in this interdisciplinary project focusses on REKLIM's Topic 9, that addresses the question of how climate change affects the air quality. One essential question arising with this central issue is related to the definition of a pertinent strategy on how the various interconnections and reactions in the atmosphere can be integrated into numerical climate and air quality models. The considered methods need to take into account the fact that the numerical simulation of atmospheric gas phase chemistry is still highly computational intensive.

Our aim at EMCL is to enhance the computational performance of regional chemistry models within global climate models to allow for higher resolution simulations which will enable a detailed insight into processes of the atmospheric chemistry.

Research Topics

Together with partners from the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK) at Karlsruher Institute of Technology (KIT) we investigate various highly innovative methods to optimize the performance of numerical models for atmospheric gas phase chemistry within global climate models. These new methods include advanced numerical techniques, such as goal oriented model adaptation and model reduction, but also pioneering new computational approaches, e.g. time parallel integration algorithms, to take advantage of future high performance computing architectures.

Our partners at KIT, the two working groups „Global Modelling“ of Dr. Roland Ruhnke (IMK-ASF) and „Aerosols, Trace Gases and Climate Processes“, Dr. Bernhard Vogel (IMK-TRO), elaborate significant reference scenarios, that capture different regimes of atmospheric chemistry. At EMCL we use these tests to verify and improve the newly developed numerical approaches.

Funding

The project is funded by the Helmholtz Association.

Partners

Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research – Atmospheric Trace Gases and Remote Sensing (KIT, IMK-ASF)
Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research – Troposphere Research (KIT, IMK-TRO)
Engineering Mathematics and Computing Lab (Heidelberg University, EMCL)