ACCESS-NRI, Australia’s Climate Simulator, would like to invite you to the 2026 ACCESS Workshop Connecting Machine Learning to Earth System Science held in Melbourne from 19-21 August 2026.

Weather extremes, climate shifts, and Earth system dynamics generate vast amounts of complex data, and making sense of it all is one of the great scientific challenges of our time. Machine learning (ML) offers powerful new tools to tackle this challenge, yet the communities developing these methods and those grappling with the science don’t always speak the same language.

This workshop is designed to bridge that gap. Whether you’re an ML researcher eager to apply ML methods to real-world problems, or an Earth system scientist working across weather, climate, atmosphere, oceans, sea-ice, or beyond, looking for ways to address open questions in your field, this is your space to connect, learn, and collaborate.

On this page:

• Latest updates
• About the workshop
• Where and when
• Presenting at the workshop
• Accessibility
  • Covid-safe plan
• Program Committee members
• Contact

Latest updates

Abstract submissions are now open!

Submit your abstract

The key dates for the ACCESS Workshop: Connecting Machine Learning to Earth System Science are:

• 13 April: Abstract submissions open
• 15 May: Abstract submissions close
• April: Registrations open
• June: Final program available
• July: Registrations close

About the workshop

Aims of the workshop

• Facilitate communication and collaboration between members of the ML and physical science communities, by sharing with each other latest machine learning tools, and key open problems in weather, climate, and Earth system physics.
• Deliver training sessions on community requested ML approaches and/or fundamental science.
• Aim to develop a community white paper articulating challenges and opportunities in the adoption of ML for solving archetypal problems in weather and climate, specific to the Australian region.

Who could benefit from participating?

• Anyone from the machine learning (ML) community looking to promote their latest methods to the community, and learn about key problems in weather and climate within the Earth system sciences.
• Anyone from the physical science communities (i.e. weather, climate, atmosphere, ocean, sea-ice, land, bio-geo-chemistry, etc.), looking to communicate key open questions in their own lines of research, and identify how potential ML approaches may assist.
• Students, early-mid career researchers, senior researchers, research software engineers and practitioners are all welcome.
• Specific community working group (CWG) days will be arranged for the ACCESS-NRI Machine learning for climate and weather CWG, and Atmosphere Modelling CWG. Arrangements can also be made for other working groups that may wish to meet.

Where and when

This year, the ACCESS Community Workshop will be held in Melbourne, on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. Join us for three exciting days of events from 19–21 August 2026.

Presenting at the workshop

Abstract submissions for oral talks and posters are open now.

Presenting at the workshop? Check out our oral presentations and posters guidelines.

Accessibility

We are committed to making this event accessible to everyone. If there any specific access requirements that we can provide to enable you to attend, please contact us at: access.nri@anu.edu.au.

Covid-safe plan

We acknowledge COVID-19 still active in the community. Check out our efforts to minimise the risk of SARS CoV-2 infection in all our events:
ACCESS-NRI COVID Safe Plan

This plan was prepared with advice from aerosol expert Professor Robyn Schofield from the University of Melbourne and member of the ACCESS-NRI Board and OzSage.

Program Committee members

The ACCESS-NRI team would like to thank the members of the Workshop Program Committee for their valuable contributions and time:

• Vassili Kitsios, Chair (CSIRO)
• Yiyi Guo (University of Melbourne)
• Tennessee Leeuwenburg (Bureau of Meteorology)
• Paul Leopardi (ACCESS-NRI)
• Heidi Nettelbeck (ACCESS-NRI)
• Steven Sherwood (University of New South Whales)
• Christian Stassen (Bureau of Meteorology)
• Yue Sun (National Computational Infrastructure)
• Edward Yang (ACCESS-NRI)

Communications and organisation:

• Natalia Bateman (ACCESS-NRI)
• Victoria Allen (ACCESS-NRI)

Contact

If you have any questions, please direct them to: access.nri@anu.edu.au.

Please note that this event may be recorded and published by the ACCESS-NRI through its communication channels. This may include your contributions during the sessions.