L. Ruby Leung (Pacific Northwest National Lab): AI for Climate Speaker Series
Agenda
3:00pm – 3:45pm: Presentation
3:45pm – 4:00pm: Q&A
4:00pm – 4:30pm: Reception
Earth System Modeling for Actionable Science
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science initiated the development of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) in 2014. The project was motivated by the need for an Earth system model to support DOE’s energy mission and meet the requirement to run on the next-generation Exascale computing systems. To provide actionable information on the climate impacts on energy and water sectors and how climate change may influence sustainable energy futures, we developed a three-pronged strategy focusing on high-resolution modeling to improve simulations of extreme events that impact energy production and use, modeling the coupled human-Earth system to project future outcomes, and large ensemble modeling to quantify uncertainty. In this lecture, I will briefly introduce E3SM, including the recently released E3SM version 3 and the global cloud-resolving model (SCREAM) that achieves a throughput of over one simulated year per day on the Frontier exascale computer. With an emphasis on modeling extreme events and their future changes, we further leverage AI/ML to reduce model biases in simulating the large-scale circulations associated with extreme events, improve model calibration and uncertainty quantification, and address the challenges in modeling hurricane risk and wildfires.
Dr. L. Ruby Leung is a Battelle Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Her research broadly cuts across multiple areas in modeling and analysis of climate and the hydrological cycle including land-atmosphere interactions, orographic processes, monsoon climate, climate extremes, land surface processes, and aerosol-cloud interactions. Her research on climate change impacts has been featured in Science, Popular Science, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and many major newspapers.
Dr. Leung is the Chief Scientist of Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) supported by U.S. Department of Energy, a major effort to develop state-of-the-art capabilities for modeling human-Earth system processes on DOE’s next generation high performance computers. She has organized key workshops sponsored by DOE, NSF, NOAA, and NASA, and served on advisory panels and NRC and NASEM committee that define future priorities and opportunities in Digital Twin, AI/ML, climate modeling, hydroclimate, and water cycle research. She is an editor of the American Meteorological Society Journal of Hydrometeorology. Dr. Leung is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and Washington State Academy of Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and American Geophysical Union (AGU). She is the recipient of the AMS Hydrologic Sciences Medal in 2022, AGU Global Environmental Change Bert Bolin Award and Lecture in 2019 and the AGU Atmospheric Science Jacob Bjerknes Lecture in 2020. In 2021, Dr. Leung received the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow Award. She has published over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals.