This week there’s a conference in Barcelona that addresses the application of grid computing to earth and environmental sciences. The Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) conference explores the creation of a grid computing infrastructure on a worldwide scale for the sharing of computer resources for such applications as: weather simulation, earthquake research, climate change, biodiversity monitoring and geological exploration.

Among the presenters and presentations are:

  • The  Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, which is comprised of 28 space agencies and 20 other national and international organisations, wants to harness the EGEE grid to manage and share Earth observations from space.
  • A new grid-based tool called AquaMaps is on display. This tool helps researchers understand the dramatic drop in fishing stock by helping to model the global distribution of marine species.
  • The creation of astronomy and astrophysics applications on the grid from various universities and institutions.
  • Bioinformatics applications
  • Global surveillance networks for flu pandemics

A good deal of the program deals with the infrastructure, dealing with the technical details of database components, security, standards, messaging, governance, user support and the porting of existing systems onto new frameworks. Significant resources are going into the creation of this grid from around the world, with much funding from the European Union.

It’s good to see the amount of activity and investment that are going into this global framework for collaborative computing. This global grid holds great promise for standardizing systems and creating channels for multidisciplinary research in order to gain a much better understanding of our planet.

Read more related Spatial Sustain posts: