The NERC eScience programme

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The NERC e-Science programme

• Robert Gurney
• Director, ESSC

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NERC e-Science projects

• GENIE (Paul Valdes, Bristol)
• GODIVA (Keith Haines, Reading)
• NERC DataGrid (Bryan Lawrence, CCLRC RAL)
• climateprediction.net (Myles Allen, Oxford)
• e-Minerals (Martin Dove, Cambridge)
• NIEeS (Martin Dove, Cambridge)
• Reading e-Science Centre (Keith Haines, Rachel
  Harrison)

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GENIE

• Grid-Enabled Integrated Earth System model
• Aims to create a distributed, component-based
  model of the earth system
• Will study long-term climate change and
  palaeoclimate
• Will incorporate components representing
  atmosphere, ocean, land surface, ice, ocean and
  land biogeochemistry, ocean sediments
• Developing novel computing techniques for model
  framework, integration, data management,
  visualization

www.genie.ac.uk
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GENIE (contd.)
Response of Atlantic circulation to freshwater
forcing

• New ways of working
• Web Portal for composing executing simulations,
  retrieving results
• Use of flocked Condor pools (London, Soton) and
  Beowulf clusters
• Data client for post-processing

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GENIE (contd.)

• 3 international collaborators (Japan, US,
  Switzerland)
• Involvement in international projects PRISM,
  EMIC, GAIM
• 4 Oral, 2 poster presentations at EUG/AGU (Nice),
  IUGG (Japan), AHM 03
• 4 refereed journal papers (1 in press, 3
  submitted)
• Engagement with industry (50K each from Intel,
  Compusys for meetings)
• 20 people at present using shared code
  repository
• Tyndall Centre will use code in integrated
  assessment model

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GODIVA

• Grid for Ocean Diagnostics, Interactive
  Visualisation and Analysis
• Aims to quantify the thermohaline circulation via
  analysis of model results and observational data
• Developing Web Services for performing common
  tasks on oceanographic data
• Data extraction, processing, analysis,
  visualisation
• These Services will be composed into workflows
  to create flexible, distributed applications
• collaborating with other e-Science projects (e.g.
  myGrid) in this matter

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GODIVA progress

• Talks/demonstrations at All Hands meeting and
  SCGlobal 2003
• Created prototype client application
• extracts live data and
• performs 3-D rendering
• Also created data portal
• providing global access
• to data (next slide)
• Will engage GIS community (e.g. MarineGIS project
  in Ireland)

www.nerc-essc.ac.uk/godiva
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GODIVA Data Portal

• Web-based, similar to Live Access Server
• Users select area of interest and can download
  data or create movies in matter of seconds or
  minutes
• Uses distributed computing for visualisation

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NERC Data Grid

• Objective is build a grid which makes data
  discovery, delivery and use much easier than it
  is now
• Standards compliant (ISO 19115, 19118), semantic
  data model for maximum interoperability
• Data can be stored in many different ways (flat
  files, databases)
• Clear separation between discovery and use of
  data.
• 1 PI, 2 co-Investigators, 4 FTE staff, 3
  registered US collaborators

ndg.nerc.ac.uk
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NERC Data Grid progress

• Involved in many UK events (All Hands, Met Soc,
  NIEeS workshops etc)
• Generated much international interest (US,
  France, Netherlands, Australia)
• Major challenges
• Influencing OGC and ISO to support the complex
  requirements of the climate simulation community
• Developing a feature-registry to allow
  semantics of data types to be well understood by
  different communities

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climateprediction.net

• Have created extremely powerful and distributed
  climate modelling facility by running model
  simulation on home computers (cf. SETI_at_home)
• Launch ensemble of coupled simulations of
  1950-2000 and compare with observations.
• Run on to 2050 under a range of natural and
  anthropogenic forcing scenarios.
• Investigates sensitivity of climate system to
  increasing CO2 with range of parameter values
• Have collaborated with other universities and
  industry to build system

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climateprediction.net results

• Already largest climate model ensemble ever (by
  factor of gt200)
• gt45,000 users, gt15,000 complete model runs,
  gt1,000,000 model years in 3 months (this is
  equivalent to 1.5 Earth Simulators)

• Global outreach (participants in all 7
  continents, inc. Antarctica!)
• Generated much interest in schools
  (coolkidsforacoolclimate.com)

10K
2K
Large range of sensitivities found
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e-Minerals

• Models the atomistic processes involved in
  environmental issues (radioactive waste disposal,
  pollution, weathering)
• Simulation of radiation damage (Daresbury)
• Order-N quantum mechanical model of fluids
  (Cambridge)
• Complex fluid-mineral interfaces crystal growth
  and dissolution (Bath)
• Developing new methods
• embedded clusters links simulations of various
  sophistication to cover greater ranges of scales
• first use of quantum Monte Carlo techniques in
  mineral sciences

eminerals.org
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e-Minerals (contd.)

• Have constructed minigrid across institutions to
  run code
• 30 scientists in 8 institutions
• Users submit jobs using a Web Portal
• This integrates the CCLRC Data Portal with the
  HPC Portal
• Developing tools for collaborative visualisation
  across the virtual organisation
• Collaborating with Peter Murray-Rust to extend
  the Chemical Markup Language (CML) for
  computational chemistry

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NIEeS

• National Institute for Environmental e-Science
• Promotes and supports the use of e-science and
  grid technologies within the UK environmental
  science community
• Holds workshops, courses, training events,
  visitor programmes, demonstration projects
• Industry event forthcoming (Feb 12th)
• generating much interest

www.niees.ac.uk
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NIEeS (contd.)

• Up to end of 2003 (since launch in July 2002)
• 14 events held
• 901 participants
• e.g. Earth Systems Modelling workshop (Oct 03)
  received coverage in national press and engaged
  Earth Simulator community in Japan
• Event sponsorship from BNFL, LaserScan
• In-kind support from EDINA, ICE, IEMA, MIRO
• Additional help from Hi Consulting

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Reading e-Science Centre

• Centre of Excellence in environmental e-Science
• Specialises in atmospheric and ocean science
• Started November 2003
• Collaboration between ESSC and Computer Science
• Activities building Web Services, infrastructure
  (clusters), local community (uni and beyond),
  external outreach into industry and govt. agencies

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Reading e-Science Centre (contd.)

• Working closely with NIEeS (e.g. to organise
  workshops)
• Working with the Met Office to provide live data
  to many different partners for variety of
  purposes
• e.g. SEEDA project with British Maritime
  Technology will use live Met Office data and
  forecast to improve search and rescue
• Also engaging Environment Agency for potential
  future projects
• Are becoming involved in projects in wide range
  of disciplines oceanography, meteorology, plant
  sciences, volcanology, ecology
• Hope to engage GIS community for greater
  interoperability

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Other activities

• 8 PhD studentships
• At least one postdoctoral research fellow
• HIGEM (PI Julia Slingo, Reading)
• involvement of Japanese Earth Simulator community
  via NIEeS workshop

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Assessment of programme

• International respect
• 45 of PIs, CoIs are in 5 depts, 41 in 5 depts
  (cf. 28 and 44 overall)
• Many projects with international reach (US,
  Australia, France, Germany, Italy at least)
• NIEeS website has enquiries from at least 33
  countries
• Industrial engagement
• NIEeS workshops attendees are 30 from users
• All NERC PIs required to engage with
  industry/govt/end users
• NIEeS Business Briefing (February 12th)
• Sustainability
• Awards are competitive
• PIs and CoIs 55 universities, 45 research
  institutes

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Assessment (contd.)

• New ways of working
• 40 of PIs and CoIs associated with Comp Sci
  depts, far higher than any other NERC programme
• Steering committee has high proportion of users
• New opportunities
• up to April 2003, 11 publications (5 Nature), one
  patent
• Dissemination and exploitation
• Using refereed literature, too early to assess
  impact
• Met Office is using developments to share ocean
  modelling results
• Several EU and ESA projects use developments of
  NERC projects
• Management procedures
• Steering committee is seen in NERC to have high
  standards
• Excellent links with e-Science core programme,
  several co-funded activities

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Common issues and findings

• NERC e-Science projects are application-oriented
  i.e. close to end users
• Many different approaches to distributed
  computing, not all Globus-based Grids
• Still a very steep learning curve for Globus
• Access Grids have proven very valuable (some
  technical hitches)
• Security/authentication is always an issue
• Needs science/technical coordinator from NERC
  community

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Common issues (contd.)

• SuperJanet connectivity to NERC Research and
  Collaborative Centres
• More work needed to make e-Science ubiquitous in
  NERC community (esp. terrestrial, earth science,
  marine ecology)
• QUEST provides opportunities

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The Future Developments

• Maintain consortia
• Further Announcement of Opportunity
• Development of NIEeS and ReSC
• Further training programme
• Themed e-Science expert groups

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The Future QUEST

• Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System
• Concentrating on improved understanding of C
  budget
• Prof. Colin Prentice (Bristol) appointed as
  research leader
• 13M from SR2002
• Research coordination 10
• Research exchanges, workshops, etc (cf. NIEeS)
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• Global model improvements 5
• Data exchanges, atlases (cf. NERC Data Grid) 5
• 3 consortium programmes 60
• Global carbon model (cf. cp.net, GODIVA) - AO
  Spring 2004
• Palaeoclimates (cf. GENIE) AO Autumn 2004
• Emissions modelling AO Sping 2005

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The Future Issues for consideration

• Semantic Web, Ontologies need NERC requirements
• Tools and infrastructure for moving TB-scale
  datasets
• Construction of NERC OGSA Grid federated set of
  3 or 4 clusters
• Development of robust environmental science
  toolkit
• Services for reformatting, interpolating,
  visualising data
• Address Grid security and reliability
• needed for engagement with users such as Met
  Office, Environment Agency