Elements: Cyberinfrastructure for streamlining coupled, simplified climate modeling within the Community Earth System Model

The community of simpler climate model users is broad, engaged, and highly multidisciplinary. However, this community presently lacks a rallying point for developing a sustainable modeling suite that can seamlessly switch between minimalist and state-of-the-art dycores and physics packages. NCAR is the center of open-source Earth System Modeling in the U.S.A. and has a long history of facilitating the development of community models that are used both for state-of-the-art climate projections and as research tools by the university community. The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is one of NCAR’s flagship models and forms a nexus for NCAR’s strong links with the university community. Through the development of cyberinfrastructure and research tools, CESM represents the ideal platform on which to build idealized configurations of the coupled ocean-land-atmosphere system with a range of simplifications.

This CSSI grant (NSF Award# 2004575) is funding the development of new capabilities in the cyberinfrastructure of NCAR’s Community Earth System Model (CESM) to enable scientists to easily create and configure coupled experiments. This infrastructure includes a new simpler model query tool and user-friendly toolchain that allows idealized CESM experiments to be readily accessed and experiments to be easily customized.