Dune: we simulated the desert planet of Arrakis to see if humans could survive there
Alex Farnsworth receives funding from UK Research and Innovation. He is affiliated with the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Sebastian Steinig receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and has been supported by the Jean Golding Institute for data science and data-intensive research at the University of Bristol.
Michael Farnsworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Dune, the epic series of sci-fi books by Frank Herbert, now turned into a movie of the same name, is set in the far future on the desert planet of Arrakis. Herbert outlined a richly-detailed world that, at first glance, seems so real we could imagine ourselves within it.
We are scientists with specific expertise in climate modelling, so we simulated the climate of Arrakis to find out. We wanted to know if the physics and environment of such a world would stack up against a real climate model.
