Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. The year 2022 exposed the world to the risks that climate change poses. Droughts and fire in the Western U.S., heat waves in Europe and massive flooding in Pakistan are a few of the examples of the significant financial and human costs associated with a changing climate.
In this presentation, we will discuss the science that supports our understanding of climate change in the context of Earth’s geologic history. This talk will emphasize the contribution of Earth System models to predicting the future trajectory of the Earth’s climate and in identifying key areas where uncertainty remains.
This presentation will highlight the state-of-the-science cloud resolving Energy Exascale Earth System (E3SM) model, which has been developed to run at incredibly high resolution on the world’s fastest computers. We will also discuss the future of climate modeling, including how artificial intelligence is being used to improve model speed and accuracy.
This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. IM Release number LLNL ABS- 843481.
Dr. Aaron S. Donahue graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2016 with a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering. His thesis work focused on the development of computational models to study the impact of ocean waves on coastal communities during extreme events such as hurricanes.
After graduating from Notre Dame, Dr. Donahue extended his research focus to climate modeling, accepting a post-doctoral position in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Climate Program. Aaron has remained at LLNL as a staff scientist, where his research focuses on the development of the Simple Cloud Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM), the Department of Energy’s state-of-the-science high resolution climate model.