Community Earth System Model

The primary goal of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project is to develop a state-of-the-art climate model and to use it to perform the best possible science to understand climate variability and global change. They strive to build a CESM community of users who are interested in participating in this project.

Objectives

• Enhance capability for Earth system modeling of the physical climate system coupled with chemistry, biogeochemistry, biology and human systems.

• Improve model representation of Earth system processes through the incorporation of new components, parameterizations and dynamical cores.

• Use existing and new observations to test Earth system models at a process level and quantify the relative importance of different feedbacks.

• Enable CESM community to conduct competitive climate research on a full range of computing platforms, through specific software developments and by hosting visitors and training tutorials.

• Provide relevant datasets to the greater climate research community, accompanied by the collective knowledge gained from our experience.

• Contribute knowledge to national and international assessments (e.g. IPCC).