DestinE

Mission

The Destination Earth initiative (DestinE) is focused on developing a highly precise digital model of the Earth to monitor and simulate natural and human activities. This initiative aims to develop and test scenarios that support sustainable development, aligning with the EU's Green Deal and Digital Strategy priorities. By providing unique digital modelling capabilities, DestinE enhances the EU’s ability to monitor environmental changes, predict extreme events, and adapt policies to climate-related challenges. It leverages high-performance computing, massive data sources, and European excellence in data and AI technologies to create digital replicas of Earth systems and natural phenomena, including the Climate Adaptation and Extremes Digital Twins.

In DestinE, expert and non-expert users can access high-quality information services, trustworthy models, scenarios, forecasts, and visualisations. Public, research, and business users can test their models, applications, and data, as well as access existing DestinE models, algorithms, and data. Digital twins within DestinE will model complex Earth systems, covering areas such as extreme natural disasters, climate change adaptation, oceans, and biodiversity. The ultimate goal is to integrate these thematic twins into a comprehensive digital twin of the Earth. The initiative is coordinated by the EC and implemented by three entities: the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) over the next 7-10 years.

The ECMWF is responsible for the digital twins and ensures the unified orchestration of Earth-system simulations, merging them with observations while maintaining interoperability and efficient data handling on Europe’s largest supercomputing facilities governed by EuroHPC.

 

Cooperation between BioDT and DestinE

The collaboration between DestinE and BioDT (Biodiversity Digital Twin) is of significant interest. Leveraging BioDT developments can contribute to DestinE’s overall goals, helping to avoid duplication of efforts and fragmentation.

A key aspect of this synergy involves preparing BioDT's data streaming requirements for integration into the DestinE Digital Twin Engine (DTE) specification. This integration will allow BioDT to contribute its specialised biodiversity models and data to the broader Earth system modelling efforts of DestinE, potentially enhancing the accuracy and scope of biodiversity simulations within the comprehensive digital twin of the Earth that DestinE aims to create.

By combining BioDT's expertise in biodiversity modelling with DestinE's powerful computing infrastructure and broader Earth system modelling capabilities, this collaboration has the potential to significantly advance our ability to monitor, predict, and respond to environmental changes, particularly in the context of biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics.