Environmental and climate sciences address some of the world’s most pressing challenges — from use of our natural resources to protection of our infrastructure and environment. In recent decades, climate and environment observation capabilities have been revolutionized, employing a suite of novel sensor, analytics and telecommunication technologies. The United States now has access to several hundred petabytes of real-time observational data of the Earth system and predictive modeling capabilities have advanced significantly to simulate the complex Earth systems, facilitated by high-performance computing.

Together, these vast observation and simulation data offer unique opportunities to apply AI approaches for improved understanding and scientific discovery in Earth and environmental sciences. AI methods offer the promise to accelerate development of advanced tools, fast emulators, scalable simulations, ensembles, and the next generation of technology for assimilating observations and data-driven forecasting.