High-Resolution Modeling of the Earth System

Project Hermès (HRMES: High-Resolution Modeling of the Earth System) is funded under the Make Our Planet Great Again call for proposals under the topic of Earth System Sciences. Project Hermès has the key aim of addressing sources of uncertainty in our understanding of the Earth system and its variability and evolution under changes in external forcings. The uncertainty comes from our inability to resolve key processes relevant to climate: principally the role of clouds, but we hypothesize that similar approaches can be applied in the ocean for key mixing processes that are also below the current resolution threshold. The project can be summarized as follows:

• Conduct very high-resolution simulations of key processes in the atmosphere and oceans which are below the threshold available in global models today. Such simulations will be at the limit of capability on today’s computing technology.

• Given trends in computational technology, use these simulations to build and train fast approximate models or emulators of the Earth system, to explore uncertainties in the system using ensembles that are beyond possibility with the full model. The unique feature of Project Hermès is the combination of computationally challenging simulations and fast models for uncertainty exploration.