ELLIS Unit NRW: Workshop 'How Resolution Matters - The Future of AI Climate Modelling'

One of the big questions facing the future of AI-based climate modelling is deceptively simple: How much resolution do we actually need? In numerical climate modelling, higher resolution generally means better representation of weather and small-scale processes - but also dramatically higher computational and energy costs. AI climate models, meanwhile, are showing promising results at coarser resolutions, and emerging evidence suggests that downscaling may be able to add credible small-scale features afterwards. Could this fundamentally change how we build climate models in the future?

If we can reliably capture the relevant large-scale dynamics at coarse resolution and reconstruct the small scales afterwards, we could potentially save enormous amounts of compute and energy while still obtaining high-resolution information. But there is a crucial question: will this remain physically meaningful in a changing climate? 

Small-scale processes are tightly coupled to large-scale dynamics, and we still need to understand whether AI models can capture these relationships well enough - and whether they will generalise beyond the climates they were trained on. This is where we need the community.

Bringing together experts in atmospheric physics, numerical climate modelling, and AI

The workshop will bring together experts in atmospheric physics, numerical climate modelling, and AI to tackle these questions from different perspectives. We want to understand what we already know, identify the most important gaps, and - most importantly - discuss what future AI climate models should look like and which strategies could make them both reliable and computationally sustainable.

Registration and program

The agenda and registration are available here: https://indico3-jsc.fz-juelich.de/event/335/

Please note that there are two separate registration forms: one for in-person participation and one for online participation. When registering, please select the form corresponding to your preferred mode of participation. The registration deadline is for in-person registrations is 20 October. The registration deadline for online registrations is 03 November.

Participants are strongy encouraged to attend the workshop in person in Cologne, as this will provide the best opportunity for interaction and discussion. The organizers are especially excited about active participation, including talks, questions, and lively discussions - this workshop should be a place to challenge assumptions, connect perspectives, and hopefully leave with some new ideas for where AI climate modelling needs to go next.

Feel free to invite colleagues from your institute who should be part of the conversation. The more perspectives we bring together, the more useful the discussion will be.


Workshop address

InnoDom Cologne, Weyertal 109, 50931 Cologne-Lindenthal, Germany