About the project
Human societies are facing grand challenges, which are expected to become even more prominent during the next decades —with climate change, availability of food, clean water and geoenergy resources being just some examples. In order to address these grand challenges, the scientific community needs to develop tools that provide decision-makers with the information required to effectively manage these issues. Earth system modelling is such a tool, as it enables investigating problems in an integrated manner considering interactions between different Earth system compartments and across scales —from local to global scales, and from weather time scales to millennia and beyond.
The ultimate goal of the project is to develop, evaluate and apply a world-leading Earth system modelling infrastructure —leading into an Earth System Simulator— to provide solutions to grand challenges faced by the Earth and environmental sciences.
Scientific and technical activities—the Scientific-technical Core—lie at the heart of the project. These include Earth System Model Development (WP1), the establishment of Earth System Data Assimilation (WP2) capacity as well as the performance of Frontier Simulations (WP3) to push existing boundaries in numerical experimentation. These “community” simulations will contribute to solving some of the grand challenges faced by the Earth and environmental sciences. At the same time, these simulations serve as demonstrations of the capability of the Earth system model infrastructure. The scientifically focussed work will be flanked by a Strategic Development component (WP4) that will lead into a long-term Earth system modelling strategy as well as a concrete implementation plan for PoF-IV.