Climate change will shape everything about life in Australia: from the homes we live in and the food we grow to the risks of bushfires, floods, and heatwaves. Understanding what lies ahead depends on climate models.
CSIRO and Australia’s Climate Simulator (ACCESS-NRI) have developed ACCESS-ESM1.6, the newest version of Australia’s climate model, which simulates the atmosphere, oceans, land, sea ice and carbon cycle, including Australia’s unique vegetation.
ACCESS-ESM1.6 has now entered the global stage through the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP7), placing Australian climate science alongside the world’s leading models and feeding directly into the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Participating in this global program is vital for Australia as it ensures Australian science informs global climate policy, with our model benchmarked for reliable use worldwide.
For Australia, having our own model is a national security consideration and essential to support our research. No other country will invest in understanding the unique drivers of our climate and its impacts. Also, as a leader of climate modelling in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia brings a unique and crucial global perspective.
Collaboration is key
Building a model of this scale and complexity requires a major collaborative effort across national research infrastructures and research organisations. ACCESS-ESM1.6 runs on Gadi, the supercomputer operated by the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). The close collaboration between CSIRO scientists and ACCESS-NRI’s software engineers has ensured complex natural processes were accurately coded and the model’s results are reproducible and easy for other researchers to use.
Why investment in this software research infrastructure matters
Every Australian has a stake in this work. The projections generated by ACCESS-ESM1.6 will inform decisions on infrastructure, agriculture, health and industry, and underpin national strategies to protect communities, the economy and the environment.
ACCESS-ESM1.6 opens new research possibilities as researchers address important questions for Australia on how we mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. For example, by simulating climate and carbon and their interactions together, they can assess the role of vegetation in determining pathways to net-zero emissions.
This is a clear demonstration of how sustained investment in national research infrastructure such as supercomputing power, data systems and the skilled teams who maintain them, turns Australian climate science into a tool with global reach and local relevance, ensuring the decisions made today are grounded in the best possible evidence for our unique environment.