The digital revolution of Earth-system science

Computational science is crucial for delivering reliable weather and climate predictions. However, despite decades of high-performance computing experience, there is serious concern about the sustainability of this application in the post-Moore/Dennard era. Here, we discuss the present limitations in the field and propose the design of a novel infrastructure that is scalable and more adaptable to future, yet unknown computing architectures. There have been substantial developments in weather and climate prediction over the past few decades, attributable to advances in computational science. The rise of new technologies poses challenges to these developments, but also brings opportunities for new progress in the field.