The ESM project started on 1 April 2017 partly funded by the Helmholtz Association over a period of three years. The project comprises eight Helmholtz Research Centres and aims to improve the representation of the components of the Earth system and their coupling, as well as to perform a series of selected numerical experiments to address Grand Challenges (Frontier Simulations). A long-term strategy for the development of an Earth System Modelling capacity is also an objective of the project.

The section Earth System Modelling is engaged in the Tasks 1.4 and 2.1.

Task 1.4, Enhanced Earth system compartments—Geosphere (GFZ, UFZ), addresses the analysis of the global geosphere and its impact on local processes in georeservoirs including corresponding interactions with adjacent Earth system compartments, the anthropogenic utilization of georeservoirs and their feedback to the geosphere and hydrosphere compartments (e.g., groundwater, soil and surface water systems). Furthermore, the feedback mechanisms due to surface mass redistribution between geosphere and the the Earth-sytem compartments atmosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere, are considered in order to establish a geosphere deformation module (GDM). The GDM will also provide gravitationally consistent response functions of the geosphere in deformation, gravity and sea level in a consistent reference system.

Task 2.1, Implementation of data assimilation in Earth system model compartments (AWI, DLR, FZJ, GFZ, HZG, KIT, UFZ), is concerned with the development of a framework that adds data assimiliation (DA) functionality to the Earth system modelling system used in this project. The objective is to obtain a framework that is compatible across different compartments, so that both in-compartment and cross- compartment DA will be possible. For this, a general strategy to connect the compartments to the DA framework will be developed. With the resulting framework, both state and parameter estimation can be performed. The DA framework will support non-Gaussian error distributions, which can appear in different compartments. Furthermore, the framework includes the development of better statistical models for the prior and the relevant model uncertainties.

For details see http://www.esm-project.net/.