Geosphere Austria has unveiled a new supercomputer designed to enhance its weather forecasts and climate models.

Compared to its predecessor from 2017, the new high-performance computer, with its 19,200 processing cores, delivers 1.7 times the computing power – around 870 billion operations per second. This allows for more detailed and faster forecasts for weather, climate, and radiation dispersion.

The new “High-Performance Computer” (HPC), also known as the “Crisis Computer,” is located at Hohe Warte in Vienna’s 19th district and cost €2.5 million. It is exclusively available to Geosphere Austria, with funding provided by the Ministry of Education.

Disaster management

Geosphere Austria plays a vital role in supporting emergency services during disasters and is represented in the country’s crisis management teams. As such, the new HPC is classified as critical infrastructure, requiring round-the-clock operation.

Geosphere Director General Andreas Schaffhauser highlighted that collaboration with Austrian state authorities during disasters is “well-established.” He also pointed to ongoing crises, such as those in the Valencia region, and the criticism of Spanish crisis management, underscoring the importance of knowing and communicating with key stakeholders to deliver scientific insights. “The work is often 80% communication and 20% meteorology,” said Schaffhauser.

Since August, the new supercomputer has been running real-time model calculations for weather forecasts and warnings. With the new system, climate and weather predictions can now be produced with greater accuracy and around 20 to 40% faster.

The enhanced capabilities enable more precise assessments of how extreme weather events might impact specific Alpine valleys. Despite these advancements, Schaffhauser cautioned that, in the face of climate change-driven heavy rainfall, “we are still dealing with a chaotic system.”

In addition, experts are using the new supercomputer to analyse heat distribution in urban areas. “Since the 1990s, temperatures have been rising dramatically,” said Schaffhauser. This unprecedented rise has led to a multiplication of heat days in urban areas, which can now be finely broken down by neighbourhoods and forecast for the next 20 to 30 years.