Announcement of the Second Land Surface Modelling Summit (LSMSII)

We are pleased to announce the second Land Surface Modelling Summit (LSMSII).

It will be held in Frascati, Italy: September 14th to 17th, 2026.

The agenda for the meeting will be available in the spring - here

Details of the logistics will be available in the summer - here

Background: Land modelling plays an important role in Earth System Models (ESMs) at many scales, affecting the predictions in nowcasting and up to long-term climate projections. Meanwhile, climate change as well as other anthropogenic pressures are generating unprecedented challenges for humanity and the planet which requires improvements in land modelling. In particular, changes in extreme weather requires a move towards higher-resolution simulations, while changes in climate and land-use requires improved simulation of the adapting and evolving land surface.

Aim of the meeting: Identify ~20 of the most important outstanding questions in terrestrial science and highlight the opportunities and barriers within current generation land models (in the context of Earth system models) to address them.  

We therefore invite terrestrial scientists from across the land modelling and observational communities in support of land modelling, including people involved in the technical software development and societal applications communities to join us at this workshop to help us identify these key outstanding terrestrial science questions and to share their perspectives and solutions to help the community make progress on addressing them.  

In particular, we are interested in contributions related to:

• Methods to utilize the increasing availability and relevance of Earth Observation data (moving from data sparse to data rich terrestrial research environment)
• Examples and opportunities for the use of AI/ML to advance land models
• New calibration and model development tools to exploit the increase in the data available
• Progress towards finer resolution land modelling or novel methods to represent heterogeneity in coupled and impacts modelling
• Revisiting and revising old land model theory with new knowledge or methods
• Progress and opportunities to improve land models in extreme conditions (e.g., very dry, wet, warm, or cold) to better represent responses to extreme events
• Deeper consideration of under-investigated regions (e.g. dryland savannahs, freezing and thawing arctic lands, high elevation regions)
• Complex response of fire and dynamic vegetation to changes in changes in climate
• Developing more realistic land and water management

We are now inviting expressions of interest to attend the summit. Please register interest here: https://forms.gle/JAyuV24G1B3C2A6V7

Places are limited, and attendees will be informed by end of March, 2026.