  Analysis of Earth system dynamics in the Anthropocene requires to explicitly
take into account the increasing magnitude of processes operating in human
societies, their cultures, economies and technosphere and their growing
feedback entanglement with those in the physical, chemical and biological
systems of the planet. However, current state-of-the-art Earth System Models do
not represent dynamic human societies and their feedback interactions with the
biogeophysical Earth system and macroeconomic Integrated Assessment Models
typically do so only with limited scope. This paper (i) proposes design
principles for constructing World-Earth Models (WEM) for Earth system analysis
of the Anthropocene, i.e., models of social (World) - ecological (Earth)
co-evolution on up to planetary scales, and (ii) presents the copan:CORE open
simulation modeling framework for developing, composing and analyzing such WEMs
based on the proposed principles. The framework provides a modular structure to
flexibly construct and study WEMs. These can contain biophysical (e.g. carbon
cycle dynamics), socio-metabolic/economic (e.g. economic growth) and
socio-cultural processes (e.g. voting on climate policies or changing social
norms) and their feedback interactions, and are based on elementary entity
types, e.g., grid cells and social systems. Thereby, copan:CORE enables the
epistemic flexibility needed for contributions towards Earth system analysis of
the Anthropocene given the large diversity of competing theories and
methodologies used for describing socio-metabolic/economic and socio-cultural
processes in the Earth system by various fields and schools of thought. To
illustrate the capabilities of the framework, we present an exemplary and
highly stylized WEM implemented in copan:CORE that illustrates how endogenizing
socio-cultural processes and feedbacks could fundamentally change macroscopic
model outcomes.
