Swapping the binoculars for a magnifying glass
Australia’s ability to understand and plan for climate risk depends on access to high-quality climate models, High Performance Computing (HPC) to run the models, and the effectiveness of the infrastructure that connects them. Global climate models are essential for understanding how the planet is changing, but their broad resolution means they miss local high impact weather events such as bushfires and extreme storms or the effect of mountains over the local weather.
Recently, Australia’s climate simulator (ACCESS-NRI) released ACCESS-rAM3, a fully supported regional atmosphere and land model built to simulate extreme weather, such as cyclones, floods, and heatwaves, which are not captured by the wide-angle lens of global climate models.
An essential partnership
Delivering that level of detail depends on a close partnership between national research infrastructures. ACCESS-rAM3 is specially engineered to run on the National Computational Infrastructure’s (NCI) Gadi supercomputer, with ACCESS-NRI doing the complex background engineering needed to adapt the UK Met Office’s regional nesting suite to Australia’s computing environment and connect it with local data sources.
That behind-the-scenes work means researchers no longer need specialist technical expertise to get started: PhD students with no modelling experience have been able to run simulations within hours, compared with the months it once took to set up equivalent experiments.
The impact is already visible in Australian climate research. Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather are using ACCESS-rAM3 to study how Australia’s weather will change, from the way cities like Sydney influence local heatwaves to how tropical and extratropical weather systems interact along the East coast. Because the model lets researchers zoom in on any historical event, at any resolution, it is helping to answer questions that global models simply cannot see clearly enough to address.
Why investment in this research infrastructure matters
This matters to every Australian because sharper, locally focused modelling supports better warnings, smarter infrastructure planning, and a clearer picture of climate risk for communities exposed to climate extremes like bushfires, floods and storms.
By investing in the computing power and specialist engineering needed to adapt world-leading models for Australian conditions, these national research infrastructures are turning cutting-edge climate science into a practical, accessible tool opening it up to a far wider community of researchers and, ultimately, to better informed decisions for the whole country.