The Earth System Grid Center for Enabling Technologies (ESG-CET) is a new research project sponsored by the U.S. DOE Office of Science under the auspices of the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program (SciDAC). The primary goal of ESG-CET is to address the formidable challenges associated with enabling analysis of and knowledge development from global Earth System models. Through a combination of Grid technologies and emerging community technology, distributed federations of supercomputers and large-scale data & analysis servers will provide a seamless and powerful environment that enables the next generation of climate research.