Summary of The Future of Climate Modelling Workshop

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Core Project on Earth System Modelling and Observations (ESMO) organized virtual workshop on “The Future of Climate Modelling” on 21-24 March, 2022.

The main goal of the workshop was to identify the key contemporary challenges for climate modelling and to plot a course forward from present practices that will allow WCRP to rise to major new challenges for climate research by exploring opportunities for climate modelling that exist now and into the coming decades. Major new modelling challenges arise from the need to provide ever more detailed and actionable climate change information to society and decision makers whilst continuing to support advancements in  climate science, including improved process understanding and modelling developments.

Relating to the high resolution modeling, Ruby Leung was invited to provide a view on the Ultra-high resolution modelling, where she presented E3SM’s effort on SCREAM and discussed the DYAMOND simulation at ~3km grid spacing. She pointed out that even without much tuning, ultra-high resolution models are more skillful than their lower resolution counterparts, but that more efforts are still needed to address model biases and a hierarchy of models are needed to address different facets of climate science and provide actionable climate information.

Some questions that were addressed and discussed during the workshop include:

• What are the main priorities for climate model improvements and developments?
• What are the main model requirements to cope with societal needs for climate information?
• Which technical developments are required to cope with future hardware generations?

How does WCRP needs to adjust its modelling approaches to meet scientific and societal challenges?

The outcome of the workshop will be compiled in form of a perspective piece to be published in a major journal as well as input into the strategic planning process of WCRP science programme. Thereby the aim will be to guide future science explorations and its wider communication with specific focus on WCRP.

Youtube links :

• Day 1 (21st March) – Future of Climate Modeling Workshop – Day 1
• Day 2 (22nd March) – Future of Climate Modeling Workshop – Day 2
• Day 3 (23rd March) – Future of Climate Modeling Workshop – Day 3
• Day 4 (24th March) – Future of Climate Modeling Workshop – Day 4

Presentations

To download the presentations, click here.

Agenda

The  final agenda can be accessed here.