Abstract: Focusing on the issues of earth system modeling——a typical type of high-performance computation (HPC)——this paper reviews the developments of earth system modeling (ESM), analyzes the main problems and needs of China in this field, proposes a future design for ESM development in our country, and points out the major scientific and technological issues which are closely related to HPC. It is hoped that, through this review, scientists in other fields will obtain some basic knowledge of ESM, and will take part also in its future developments in China.