Case Study: Utrecht University predicts extreme sea level rise with SURF's national supercomputer

Utrecht University - Customer Case Study

Utrecht University, led by Professor Henk Dijkstra, faced the challenge of investigating how ocean eddies affect regional extremes in sea level rise. This research required running high-resolution ocean models, a computationally intensive process that was previously very time-consuming. To address this, the university collaborated with SURF and utilized their national supercomputer service.

The solution implemented by SURF provided the computational power needed, notably through the use of graphical processors (GPUs) that accelerated the ocean model. This allowed researchers to run four years of ocean simulation in a single day instead of just one. SURF also supplied robust data storage and analysis support. As a result, the team could efficiently process massive datasets and made a significant discovery: the risk of an extreme sea level rise in the North Sea region has increased from a once-every-five-years event to a once-a-year event.

Utrecht University

Henk Dijkstra

Professor