Earth System Science Frontiers - an ECS perspective

FLORIAN RAUSER; MOHAMMAD ALQADI; STEVE AROWOLO; NOËL BAKER; ERIK BEHRENS; JOEL BEDARD; NILAY DOGULU; LUCAS GATTI DOMINGUES; ARIANE FRASSONI; JULIA KELLER; SARAH KIRKPATRICK; GABY LANGENDIJK; SALAUDDIN MOHAMMAD; MASOUMEH MIRSAFA; ANN KRISTIN NAUMANN; MARISOL OSMAN; KEVIN REED; MARION GREILINGER; VERA SCHEMANN; AWNESH SINGH; SEBASTIAN SONNTAG; FIONA TUMMON; DIKE VICTOR NNAMDI; MARCELINO Q. VILLAFUERTE; JAKUB P. WALAWENDER; MODATHIR ZAROUG

BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC

Lugar: Boston; Año: 2017 vol. 98 p. 1120 - 1127

0003-0007

We, the Young Earth System Scientist community, describe our long-term vision for the frontiers of Earth system science on the way to a holistic understanding of the Earth system.The exigencies of the global community towards Earth system science will increase in the future as population, economies and the human footprint on the planet continue to grow. This growth, combined with intensifying urbanisation, will inevitably exert increasing pressure on all ecosystem services. A unified interdisciplinary approach to Earth system science is required that can address this challenge, integrates technical demands and long-term visions, and reconciles user demands with scientific feasibility. Together with the research arms of the World Meteorological Organisation, the Young Earth System Scientists community has gathered early-career scientists from around the world to initiate a discussion about frontiers of Earth system science. To provide optimal information for society, Earth system science has to provide a comprehensive understanding of the physical processes that drive the Earth system as well as anthropogenic influences. This understanding will be reflected in seamless prediction systems for environmental processes that are robust and instructive to local users on all scales. Such prediction systems require improved physical process understanding, more high-resolution global observations, advanced modelling capability, as well as high performance computing on unprecedented scales. At the same time, the robustness and usability of such prediction systems also depend on deepening our understanding of the entire Earth system as well as improved communication between end-users and researchers. Earth system science is the fundamental baseline for understanding the Earth?s capacity to accommodate humanity, and provides a means to have a rational discussion about the consequences and limits of anthropogenic influence on the planet we live on. Without its progress, truly sustainable development will be impossible.