About

Computational advancements have enabled significant progress in climate modeling, which is now conducted at kilometer-scale resolutions, allowing for explicit representation of convection (convection-permitting).

This approach provides greater realism and accuracy in the simulation of climate events, especially at regional and local scales, and seeks to reduce uncertainties in projections of future climate. However, few research centers possess the capacity to conduct long-term simulations using global models at such resolutions.

To foster a collaborative and coordinated effort, the Digital Earths Lighthouse Activity of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is serving as an "umbrella" for the Digital Earths Global Hackathon - 2025. This initiative will bring together scientists from around the world to jointly analyze the first coordinated experiments of global climate models simulating a full annual cycle at horizontal spatial resolutions of 5 km or less.

The event will take place from May 12 to 17, 2025, at ten hubs worldwide:

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
China
Japan
Germany
United Kingdom
Eastern USA (GFDL)
Central USA (NSF NCAR)
Western USA (PNNL)

São Paulo, Brazil, will serve as one hub for South America, with the event organized through the collaboration of three institutions: the University of São Paulo (USP), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and the Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI).

The workshop, to be held at USP, will invite participants (experts and graduate students) to analyze the results of the global simulations.

What is the Digital Earths Global Hackathon-2025?

The Digital Earths Global Hackathon-2025 is an initiative aimed at fostering global communities with shared interests.

Objectives

Promoting Global Collaboration

By sharing best practices in kilometer-scale simulation analysis, this hackathon will encourage global data sharing and collaborative workflows. Experts will work together to analyze kilometer-scale global climate simulation data.

Enhancing Accessibility

High-quality data resources will be made readily available to users, supported by designated ambassadors who will facilitate international collaboration and access to key data nodes.

Expanding Long-Term Access

Looking ahead, the goal is to extend access to a broader user base by applying lessons learned from these initial efforts, fostering a more connected data-sharing environment.

Framework

Participants will gather at one of ten hubs, each providing access to a shared pool of data and computational resources. Each hub will offer simulations covering at least one full annual cycle, standardized on a common grid (HEALPix). This standardization will help teams share their analyses across different hubs working on various models.

The hackathon will focus on evaluating kilometer-scale global climate simulations, including systems that influence South American regional climate.

The analyses will follow the Sendai Protocol (Takasuka et al., 2024), designed for evaluating kilometer-scale climate simulations, which includes:

Intercomparison of one-year simulations from global atmospheric or coupled ocean-atmosphere models with horizontal resolutions finer than 5 km.
Simulations covering at least four continuous seasons (March 2020 – February 2021) for intercomparison.
Output variables interpolated to 0.25° resolution, with a subset of variables available on native grids for mesoscale system and tropical cyclone analysis.
Assessing large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), monsoons, mid-latitude upper-level jets, as well as their temporal evolution and the impact of high resolution on these patterns.

At the São Paulo hub, additional activities will include seminar presentations by experts who will share their previous experiences, providing insights that can be applied throughout the hackathon.

Expected Audience

The event is aimed at expert researchers, graduate students, early-career scientists, and specialists in climate model analysis in South America. Interested participants must register online via this form. It is strongly recommended that they have prior knowledge of Linux systems and commonly used software for handling large datasets (CDO, Python, Jupyter, R, etc.).

Participation slots will be equally distributed by gender, promoting the inclusion of women in science in general and in climate research in particular.

Expected number of participants: 100

Host country (Brazil): 60 participants (students and specialists)

Non-host countries: 40 participants (students and specialists) from South American countries Relevance to Brazil and South America Brazil’s role as a hub for South America highlights the country’s prominence in global climate modeling and aligns with the COP30 efforts, which will be hosted in Belém in November 2025.

This new generation of kilometer-scale global models has the potential to reduce simulation errors in the current climate, thereby decreasing uncertainties in future climate projections under increasing greenhouse gas emissions (Takayabu et al., 2022).

Future climate projections serve as the foundation for developing adaptation and mitigation policies for climate change. Additionally, this initiative will contribute to knowledge production, training of students and scientists, and fostering international collaboration, which is crucial for enhancing the global integration of Brazilian institutions.

Scientific and Organizing Committee

General Coordination

Prof. Dr. Rosmeri Porfírio da Rocha (University of São Paulo - USP)

Scientific and Organizing Committee

Tércio Ambrizzi (University of São Paulo - USP)
Paulo Nobre (National Institute for Space Research - INPE, Brazil)
Michelle Simões Reboita (Federal University of Itajubá - UNIFEI, Brazil)
Lincoln Muniz Alves (National Institute for Space Research - INPE, Brazil)
Amanda Rehbein (University of São Paulo - USP, Brazil)

Technical Support Committee

Ivan Márcio Barbosa (National Institute for Space Research - INPE, Brazil)
Sebastião Antônio Silva (University of São Paulo - USP, Brazil)

Invited Experts

Cristiano Prestrelo de Oliveira (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN, Brazil)
David Pareja Quispe (National University of San Marcos - UNMSM, Peru)
Everaldo B. De Souza (Federal University of Pará - UFPA, Brazil)
Helber Barros Gomes (Federal University of Alagoas - UFAL, Brazil)
Rocio Balmaceda Huarte (University of Buenos Aires - UBA, Argentina)
Simone Erostildes Ferraz (Federal University of Santa Maria - UFSM, Brazil)
Maria Laura Bettolli (University of Buenos Aires - UBA, Argentina)

Preliminary Program

The workshop will feature two main activities, scheduled for the morning and afternoon sessions from May 12 to 17, 2025.

Morning Session: Six 15-minute lectures will be delivered each day by the invited experts. Workshop activities will commence after the lectures.
Afternoon Session: Entirely dedicated to simulation analysis activities. On May 17, participants will present the results of their analyses conducted throughout the workshop.

References

Takayabu, I., Rasmussen, R., Nakakita, E., Prein, A., Kawase, H., Watanabe, S. I., ... & Wu, Y. H. (2022). Convection-permitting models for climate research. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(1), E77-E82.

Takasuka, D., Satoh, M., Miyakawa, T., Kodama, C., Klocke, D., Stevens, B., ... & Terai, C. R. (2024). A protocol and analysis of year-long simulations of global storm-resolving models and beyond. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, 11(1), 66.