CESM Workshop 2026

31st Annual CESM Workshop, June 15-17, 2026

The CESM Workshop will begin on Monday, 15 June 2026. The day will include presentations on the state of the CESM, presentations by this year's award recipients, and plenary presentations, followed by CESM Working Group Meetings in the afternoon and an interactive poster session.

Announcing our Plenary Speakers

Duncan Watson-Parris, Scripps/UCSD - Gradients, benchmarks, and agents: a new toolkit for old uncertainties

Duncan Watson-Parris is an Assistant Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, UC San Diego, where he leads the Climate Analytics Lab. His research focuses on aerosol–cloud interactions and their representation in global climate models, combining satellite observations, machine learning, and differentiable modelling to reduce uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing. He is a lead developer of JEM, the first fully differentiable Earth System Model, and leads the GAIA Initiative at UCSD. His research is supported by an NSF CAREER award, a Google Academic Research Award, and DARPA.

James Done, MMM/NSF NCAR - Advancing Climate Research to Provide Risk-Relevant Hazard Information

James Done leads the Weather Extremes Across Scales research section within NSF NCAR's Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Laboratory. He partners with risk managers to advance fundamental understanding of hazards in a changing climate while ensuring that new insights are usable in risk management decision-making. He currently serves on a National Academies Committee on Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and their Impacts. He is also a member of a US CLIVAR working group on Accelerating Research on the Scientific Foundations of Regional Climate Risk Information.

Cross-Working Group Sessions

On 14-15 June 2026, there are working group sessions designed to share information and encourage discussion and collaboration.

We will have four cross-working group sessions this year:

I. Storytelling to craft climate science tools for communities: In this cross-working group session, we explore ways of collaboratively telling climate and weather-related stories that engage broad audiences. We aim to uncover and share stories embedded within CESM experiments and datasets. Storytelling is a powerful approach to frame research problems or results around metrics that matter to communities and that inspire new scientific discoveries.

II.  Harnessing Machine Learning for CESM: Innovation and Integration

This cross-working group session aims to explore ongoing machine learning (ML) applications within the Community Earth System Model (CESM). Leveraging ML offers opportunities to enhance model performance and scientific discovery through improved parameterizations, parameter estimation, real-time bias correction, full model emulation, and beyond. This cross-working group session will serve as a space for researchers to share advances, discuss challenges, and shape the future of ML integration into CESM science.

III. Earth System Prediction with CESM: Bridging Science and Real-World Applications

This session invites presentations on Earth system prediction and predictability using CESM across subseasonal to decadal timescales, including research on how predictability may evolve in a changing world. We particularly encourage contributions that clearly demonstrate the real-world value of CESM simulations for applications in industry, hazard and resource management, finance, insurance, and business. In addition to sharing research and practical experience with CESM, speakers are encouraged to present on or propose new prediction-focused simulations, tools, or approaches that could enhance the real-world usability and impact of CESM-based products.

IV. Development and application of high-resolution CESM configurations

This session will focus on the successes, opportunities, and challenges with the development and application of CESM (coupled or component models) at high resolutions.  This includes resolutions from 10-25km down to km-scale, regionally refined or regional modeling capabilities, and timescales ranging from climate to seasonal to subseasonal. Contributions focused on both scientific and technical/computational topics are encouraged.

The deadline to submit a title and abstract for a talk or poster is Monday, May 4, 2026

You will be notified if your talk or poster is accepted the week of May 11, 2026.

Registration will open on April 30, 2026, and will close for in-person participants on Friday, June 5, 2026.

Registration to participate online will remain open throughout the duration of the workshop at no cost.

Please contact Elizabeth Faircloth (fair@ucar.edu) with any questions.