New technologies
The world's first digital ocean
Audio 02:10
The digital replica of the oceans will thus constitute a decision-making tool open to everyone and to all countries, to find solutions to the global climate crisis together.
© CC0 Pixabay/S.
Hermann & F. Richter
By: Dominique Desaunay Follow
3 mins
The French company Mercator Ocean International in Toulouse has been chosen by Europe to create the world's first digital ocean.
The objective of this oceanic twin is to carry out simulations in order to better understand the consequences of human activities in marine environments.
Advertising
With the latest developments in 3D virtualization technologies, it becomes possible to create, on supercomputers, a world parallel to ours, which would be as faithful as the original.
These digital doubles
make it possible to study the evolution of environmental disorders which are amplified under the pressure of human activities.
And data from ocean observations, from satellites or from sensors at sea, collected and analyzed by
Mercator Ocean International
, now offers the possibility of creating the world's first digital ocean.
The need to access digital ocean information
The objective of this computer simulation of reality is to anticipate the consequences of global warming on marine environments and to understand the preponderant role of the ocean in climate regulation, explains Pierre Bahurel, general manager of Mercator Ocean International.
"
The fact of being able to access digital information on the ocean and to easily visualize data concerning its state or its environment is of interest that today goes beyond the sole framework of scientific research
", explains Pierre Bahurel.
“
Citizens also need access to this information, political decision-makers or industrialists too.
This is the objective of the digital twin of the ocean that we are developing.
This computer replica of the marine environment integrates several components, such as the state of temperature, the level of oxygen, CO2, the presence or absence of ice, the drift of icebergs, the quantity of pollutants, that of phosphates, the state of biodiversity or the strength of the waves and the sea level
.
»
"
This double computing of marine environments integrates all the parameters that are necessary to reproduce the real ocean on a supercomputer
", he adds.
"
It is therefore a great software that offers a faithful simulation in which one can navigate in all dimensions and move freely in a 3D space, but also in time in order to make forecasts.
This makes it possible to carry out rigorous experiments, such as knowing what happens if, for example, the level of CO2 is increased and thus determining what its impact will be on the acidity of the water.
Another example, if a pollutant is introduced into a river, this digital model offers the possibility of knowing how and at what speed this pollution will spread according to its original position, at 10, 50, 100 or even 500 km, from the sea
", explains Pierre Bahurel.
A decision-making tool
At the recent One Ocean Summit, Spain, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and France pledged to transform Mercator Ocean International into an "
intergovernmental organization in charge of the world's first digital ocean". world
”.
This new structure is intended for researchers, maritime industries, governments, but also associations and all of civil society.
This oceanic digital twin will thus constitute a decision-making tool open to everyone and to all countries, to find solutions to the global climate crisis together.
If you have any questions or suggestions, you can write to us at
nouvelles.technologies@rfi.fr
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Internet
Technologies