Abstract
Early warning systems in the areas of weather and climate for supporting decision making and strategic intervention in key sectors (e.g. water, health, energy, disaster risk management, and agriculture) rely on the use of earth observations and numerical models that require supercomputing resources. Such resources are now primarily provided through High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities. As a result of a global increase in availability and accessibility of supercomputing HPC facilities, numerical models that can now be employed have become more complex. Furthermore, resolutions now used and achievable have increased significantly. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Cyber-Infrastructure (CI) Framework aims to build increased capacity in regional research and education networks, data sharing infrastructure and trained human capital – to make efficient and effective use of the CI resources. Through the implementation of the regional CI framework and national initiatives, several member states in Southern Africa now have HPC facilities. The availability of this infrastructure in the region provides opportunities for domains, domain scientists and collaboration through research and development projects. For meteorology, this will support more local and regional weather and climate scientists. For meteorological services, this will mean increased in-house and in-country capacity to run models, with less reliance on external resources from developed countries. This paper discusses a regional weather and climate implementation project of the SADC CI.
Highlights
Natural hazards can significantly impact economies, and may seriously undermine sustainable development and the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries
The components of CI are High Performance Computing (HPC), National Research and Education networks (NRENs), Data, Policies and Human Capital Development (SADC, 2016 & Motshegwa et al, 2018.) The Framework is aimed at providing a roadmap to enhance and develop a holistic cyber-infrastructure System in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to:
Information on the available HPC infrastructure nationally was further obtained through CI experts, who are the developers of the SADC CI Framework
Summary
Natural hazards can significantly impact economies, and may seriously undermine sustainable development and the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries. Tropical cyclone Idai made landfall over Mozambique and resulted in over 1000 deaths in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi Both developed and developing countries are affected by hazards. Warning systems rely on the use of earth observations and numerical models that require high-end supercomputing facilities to analyse or produce simulations with high spatial resolution (Dickinson et al, 2002) timeously. Data from earth observations (that are crucial for the development of early warning systems) increases as more satellites are launched. The project will help support the development of weather and climate early warning systems; help with decision making to enable adaptation to climate change; and allow different countries to build and exchange data and expertise, through efficient usage of available infrastructure
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