Understanding Climate Risk in Future Energy Systems: An Energy–Climate Data Hackathon

Abstract

What: Approximately 40 participants – with expertise spanning energy, computer science, weather and climate research -– joined a week-long Energy-Climate data “hackathon” in June 2021. It was hosted by the Universities of Oxford and Reading in partnership with the UK Met Office as part of a series of themed hackathons supported by the Met Office and held in the run-up to the UN COP26 conference. Six projects were initiated and developed by teams over the course of the week, supported by access to state-of-the-art computational resources on the UK’s CEDA-JASMIN service, and stimulated by keynote speakers from industry and academia. The hackathon concluded with teams presenting their outputs to a panel of invited experts. Several teams plan to build on their hackathon success in publications, ongoing collaborations and research funding proposals. When: 18th May (half-day “scoping” event) & 21st-25th June 2021 (main hackathon) Where: Online via Zoom and Gather.Town, supported by Slack communication channels Affiliations: Initiated by: University of Oxford Dr Sarah Sparrow, Professor David Wallom, Professor Tim Woollings, & University of Reading Professor David Brayshaw, Dr Hannah Bloomfield, In partnership with the Met Office, the UK’s national meteorological service, and with support from the UK’s CEDA-JASMIN service and Gurobi optimization software.

Weather, Vol. 79, no. 6, June 2024, pp. 174‐204

“…In addition to traditional scientific research and development, novel approaches can be helpful to explore climate data in new and exciting ways (Thomas et al, 2022). One such approach is through the concept of 'hackathons'; events where a range of collaborators come together and spend a dedicated, short period of time to approach and solve questions of particular interest (Crook et al, 2022;Fallon et al, 2022;Mitchell et al, 2022;Thomas et al, 2022).…”

A collaborative hackathon to investigate climate change and extreme weather impacts in justice and insurance settings

“…In addition to traditional scientific research and development, novel approaches can be helpful to explore climate data in new and exciting ways (Thomas et al ., 2022). One such approach is through the concept of ‘hackathons’; events where a range of collaborators come together and spend a dedicated, short period of time to approach and solve questions of particular interest (Crook et al ., 2022; Fallon et al ., 2022; Mitchell et al ., 2022; Thomas et al ., 2022).…”

Organising a collaborative online hackathon for cutting‐edge climate research

“…1 1 The full series of hackathons was: Met Office: Marine & coastal, nature‐based solutions and sustainable development (Met Office, 2021a); University of Leeds: Future weather in Africa (Marsham and The Leeds Met Office Hackathon Organising Committee, 2021; Crook et al ., 2022); University College London: Extreme events (Brierley et al ., 2021); University of Bristol: Analysis of CMIP6 data (Thomas and The CMIP6 Data Hackathon Organising Committee, 2021; Mitchell et al ., 2022); University of Exeter: Sustainable finance (Harrison, 2021a); Universities of Oxford and Reading: Climate risks in future energy systems (Fallon et al ., 2021; Harrison, 2021b). …”