Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Abstract Many of the scientific and societal challenges in understanding and preparing for global environmental change rest upon our ability to understand and predict the water cycle change at large river basin, continent, and global scales. However, current large‐scale land models (as a component of Earth System Models, or ESMs) do not yet reflect the best hydrologic process understanding or utilize the large amount of hydrologic observations for model testing. This paper discusses the opportunities and key challenges to improve hydrologic process representations and benchmarking in ESM land models, suggesting that (1) land model development can benefit from recent advances in hydrology, both through…