Mathematics of Planet Earth

Internationally, the increasing demand for accurate high-impact weather and Earth-system (hydrology, chemistry, land, ocean, sea-ice …) predictions is indisputable. It has led to significant investment in sophisticated applied mathematical algorithms and studies, high performance computing, high-speed telecommunication, remote sensing, ground-, space- and aircraft-based measurement technologies. These has propped up fields and laboratory process studies, the development of observational techniques and coupled numerical weather and Earth-system models to produce weather and climate predictions. At the dawn of this new century, significant applied mathematics, research and development challenges remain to be met before acceptable meteorological and Earth-system forecasts with increase economic and societal values can be produced worldwide from urban to planetary scale and all relevant time scale.
An historical perspective and future challenges of this multi-scale and seamless prediction problem will be presented.