idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
Experts from around the world specializing in high-resolution Earth system modeling are currently meeting in Hamburg for the km-Scale Global Modelling Summit 2026. The conference is led by the BMFTR project WarmWorld and locally organized by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.
What will the weather be like in the future? Where can we expect extreme weather events to occur more frequently, and how intense will they be? Questions like these are pressing in light of ongoing climate change and the necessary adaptation to it. However, answering them requires climate projections with a level of detail that traditional Earth system models fail to provide. Thanks to state-of-the-art high-performance computers, advanced software, and artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have made great strides toward a new generation of Earth system models with a resolution of just a few kilometers. Around 350 experts in this field of innovation are currently gathering at the km-Scale Global Modelling Summit 2026, which is taking place from July 20 to 24 at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg. The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) is the local organizer and a co-sponsor of the meeting.
Exploring new horizons
Global km-scale Earth system models differ from traditional climate models by more than just the finer computational grid. They contain a much larger number of processes that are explicitly described using physical equations, rather than approximated by statistical means. This level of detail pushes even the most advanced supercomputers to their limits. This is why km-scale modeling challenges climate, computational, and computer scientists and drives innovations in high-tech and AI.
The summit program reflects this interdisciplinarity. Speakers from climate research institutions, universities, computing centers, and technology companies are presenting the latest developments in their fields, from initial scientific experimentation with storm-resolving models to AI-supported forecasts and observation programs to validate the models and test hypotheses developed with their help. By the end of the conference, the experts plan to release a joint statement summarizing the current state of km-scale Earth system models and the opportunities they present.
United by a vision
The km-scale Global Modelling Summit is supported by several scientific projects, including WarmWorld, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR); the EU project EERIE; and the EXCLAIM project, funded by the Zurich Open-ETH Program. It builds on the scientific advances of further projects and initiatives and carries forward the vision of the Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE) to make granular climate information accessible to everyone. This vision has united experts who now form a global community that meets regularly and is constantly growing. For example, last year, researchers met simultaneously at ten locations around the globe—including in Hamburg—for the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Global Km-Scale Hackathon. The next edition of the event is scheduled for June 2027; the MPI-M and its partners will also be involved. About 50 participants started to prepare for this event during a three-day hackathon at the MPI-M, held from July 16–18, right before the Summit.
Dr. Elina Plesca,
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology:
elina.plesca@mpimet.mpg.de
Prof. Dr. Bjorn Stevens
, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
: bjorn.stevens@mpimet.mpg.de
https://km-scale-summit-26.org
https://mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/detail-view-news-homepage/around-350-clim...
https://www.dkrz.de/en/communication/news-archive/km-scale-summit2026-hamburg
Key visual of the km-Scale Global Modelling Summit 2026
Source: WarmWorld/MPI for Meteorology
Copyright: Background image: MPI-M/DKRZ/NVIDIA
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