The International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) has been selected to develop two use cases for the Destination Earth initiative, an ambitious European programme that developed a realistic digital model of the Earth.

The digital twin model, going live today (June 10), offers unparalleled simulation accuracy of interdependent Earth phenomena, both man-made and natural. Using High-performance computing (HPC) and AI technology, Destination Earth will shield light on multiple domains of social relevance, such as local impacts of climate change and natural hazard prediction.

CIMNE, in particular, contributed to two use cases on Energy and Air Quality. The use case on Energy will assess the resilience of the electrical network in Catalonia to cope with energy demand peaks during extreme weather events. The latter is set to provide very high-resolution forecasts of aerial dust concentration in Barcelona.

Both use cases stem from CIMNE’s pre-existing research lines from the PIKSEL project, for the Air Quality use case, and from Horizon 2020’s BIGG initiative and the ELISE action for the Energy dataset, developed in cooperation with the Joint Research Center of the European Commission.

A scheme of the PIKSEL project dataset.

Engineers will use CIMNE’s applications to test, demonstrate, and refine technical capabilities of Destination Earth’s Data Lake (DEDL) related to near-data computing capabilities and the combination of very large datasets from heterogenous sources.

Destination Earth’s Data Lake draws from existing European data holdings, including data from Copernicus (European Space Agency’s Earth observation programme) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), as well as supplementary data like that provided by CIMNE.

By combining real-time observations with previous data pools, experts will further develop a highly accurate replica of complex Earth systems, helping researchers understand the complex interplay between socio-economic and natural phenomena, advancing scientific knowledge and supporting data-based policymaking.

Destination Earth website