Earth System Modeling group develops and applies large scale models ranging from global aerosol or vegetation models to fully coupled Earth System Models (ESM). The main tools of the group are two ESMs. University of Helsinki has been actively using and developing MPI-ESM already since 2005. Recently, the group has joined both Nordic collaboration with the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM) and European collaboration with the EC-Earth model.  The group is strongly linked to other research groups in the Center Of Excellence,and national collaboration with e.g. Finnish Meteorological Institute is established by several joint projects as well as frequent common meetings and seminars on ESM topics.

The group develops the ESMs in various aspects, e.g. regarding aerosol microphysics, aerosol optics, new particle formation, methane emissions from peatlands. The research carried out with the ESMs addresses questions on e.g. anthropogenic climate change, climate effects of biofuels, biospheric responses to a changing climate and land use, and Earth System Feedbacks.