US Climate Modeling Summit

USMCS, a hybrid meeting, was held in College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, MD

The Eighth Annual US Climate Modeling Summit (USCMS) workshop and meeting were held on Aug 2-4, 2022 in a hybrid format. This annual event of the Interagency Group on Integrative Modeling (IGIM) under the USGCRP brings together the Nation’s major experimental and operational climate modeling programs to improve coordination and communication of national climate modeling goals and objectives. Co-organized by Ruby Leung of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Gokhan Danabasoglu of National Center for Atmospheric Research, the summit workshop and meeting were held at the College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, MD, and through Webex, with logistical support provided by Angela Jefferson and Cheryll Nunez of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This year, the US modeling centers selected water cycle and water security as the theme of the USCMS workshop. This workshop theme is motivated by the important role water plays in sustaining life and supporting human activities and the need for the Nation to prepare for future challenges in water security to harness the productive power of water and reduce its destructive impacts. Climate models exhibit noticeable biases in simulating different aspects of the water cycle, undermining their ability in meeting the increasing demands for projections of water cycle changes and modeling water security challenges facing the Nation.

The workshop was attended by ~40 scientists from the US modeling centers and universities and ~15 program managers from IGIM and USGCRP. The workshop was organized in three sessions over 1.5 days on August 2-3, focusing on (1) model development and evaluation; (2) insights from observations and models; and (3) emerging approaches: ultra-high-resolution modeling and artificial intelligence/machine learning. The workshop features presentations on research at the US climate modeling centers and by the broader community. E3SM scientists including Ben Bond-Lamberty, Peter Caldwell, Darren Engwirda, Bryce Harrop, Ruby Leung, and Tian Zhou presented examples of research highlighting development and evaluation of E3SM model features as well as modeling experiments and analyses relevant to water cycle and water security. Workshop participants identified research gaps and opportunities for collaborative efforts to advance modeling of water cycle and water security.

Immediately following the workshop, the summit meeting was held in the afternoon of August 3 and the morning of August 4. Attended by the co-leads of the US modeling centers and members of IGIM, the summit meeting included updates on activities at the modeling centers. The meeting also included presentations and discussions on selected topics of interest to the centers and IGIM for collaborations and coordination in the near future. A final report of the eighth USCMS workshop and meeting will be publicly available at the USCMS site.