Dear colleagues,
I am writing these lines in my office on July 29th, 2024. Outside a scorching heatwave is blanketing South Korea, and the world has just passed its hottest day on record. Three weeks ago, several areas in South Korea experienced extreme precipitation exceeding over 100mm per hour. In some regions 4 to 5 days of rainfall were enough to reach the climatological annual rainfall. All of these extreme situations are reminders of the fact that we are already living on a planet, that has been substantially altered by fossil fuel burning and the resulting greenhouse warming.
South Korean citizens are concerned about their future in a warming world and urgently want to know what can be done to slow down the expected trends or adapt to them. Future planning requires scientific understanding and reliable projections, and the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) provides both to the general public and to decision makers. How did we get here, and how will we move forward?
What I set out to do? When I moved to South Korea in 2017 my dream was to build a new leading research hub for multi-disciplinary climate sciences in Asia, that integrates our understanding of past climate and the simulation of its future, that provides a unique infrastructure to conduct cutting edge science, that encourages high-risk-high reward approaches, makes fundamental discoveries and improves the societal response to global warming. Looking back at the past 8 years, I am proud to say that together with an amazing team of colleagues, I had the privilege to realize this dream. Our Center has grown into one of South Korea’s largest climate research centers which addresses past, present and future climate change. We have made breakthrough discoveries, conducted unprecedented climate change simulations at the highest computationally possible resolution, provided new insights into how past climate changed human evolution and developed a new multi-year climate prediction modeling system. We have become a key resource in South Korea to educate the general public and provide expert advice to governmental committees on matters of climate change, adaptation and mitigation. Much of our success can be attributed to the outstanding teamwork within our center, our unique supercomputing resources and the generous funding of Ministry for Science and ICT through the Institute for Basic Science.
ICCP -quo vadis? In ICCP we have created a dynamical environment, which also allows us to address emerging issues and develop new important research fields. Examples include our new projects on climate and vector-borne diseases, terrestrial and marine ecosystem responses to global warming using combined habitat-dynamical models, climate-ice sheet interactions and our storm-resolving global warming simulations at 9 km resolution. As many of these projects are still relatively new and partly related to the recent hiring of three ICCP Professors, we will continue to work on them over the next 3 years and strengthen the associated research teams to conduct frontier research. Looking forward, ICCP has built a strong base, rooted in basic science. This was ICCP1.0/
Yet, the simulations that we conducted, e.g. the CESM2 Large Ensemble which characterizes the evolution of the probability distribution of climate, have also relevance for stakeholders and policymakers and could directly help in the development of adaptation strategies for societies. Moreover, the multiyear climate forecasting system that we have developed – initially to study the sources of predictability – is ready to be launched as an actual climate and ecosystem forecasting system, producing data that can be shared with other communities and the general public. During the next 6 years (ICCP2.0), we hope to strengthen and advance our basic science portfolio, whilst also engaging more with stakeholder communities in South Korea and abroad to deliver actionable science and useful climate products.
Never would I have imagined that my move to South Korea would engulf my life with so much momentum, sense of accomplishment and joy.
I am excited to share our 8-year journey into uncharted science territories, through fascinating multi-disciplinary landscapes, logistic challenges, and climate modeling adventures.
Prof. Axel Timmermann
Director, IBS Center for Climate Physics