Supercomputer to study glaciers

A ship approaches to the Perito Moreno Glacier at the Los Glaciares National Park in the Patagonia region, Southern Argentina

Scientists will look at the effect of glacier thinning on climate change

A new "supercomputer" which will help experts predict what is going to happen to the world's climate has been launched by Swansea University.

The IBM Blue Ice supercomputer was unveiled during an European open day at Technium Pembrokeshire.

Professor Tavi Murray, the centre's scientific director, said the world was facing "a really uncertain future".

The supercomputer will help scientists make "best guesses according to different scenarios", she said.

Prof Murray is a glaciologist and her work aims to measure past and predict future contributions from glacier and ice sheets to sea-level rise, and the repercussions that sea level rise will have.

"What we're going to do with it is we're going to run many many climate models," she said.

I think we're facing a really uncertain future

Prof Tavi Murray

"We don't actually know what's going to happen in the future.

"For example, we don't really know how carbon dioxide is going to rise, but we can make best guesses according to different scenarios - how we live our lives, basically.

"And then we can run large numbers of models to actually try and predict what the global temperature will be, what the precipitation will be, and the pattern of that over the earth's surface."

Prof Murray said one of the reasons for creating the models was to make people change the way they live.

"But I think also we're facing a really uncertain future," said the scientist.

"People are talking a lot about a lot of different policies that we could use to try and tackle climate change.

"But those can also have unexpected changes in other parts of the climate system that allows us to explore possible policies before we were to implement them," she added.

The supercomputer is part of The Mike Barnsley Centre for Climate Research, named in recognition of a former pro-vice chancellor and his contribution to both Swansea University and the field of environmental science.

Prof Murray said she believed Blue Ice was "one of the greenest supercomputers around" and also said the technium building where it is housed was itself "very sustainable and green".