CCSM Paleoclimate Workflow
Participants
Jerry Potter/University of California at Davis, Isabel Montanez/University of California at Davis, Jessica Oster/Stanford University, Kathy Saint/SGI, Fei Liu/ESMF Core Team, Sylvia Murphy/NESII Project Manager, Cecelia DeLuca/ESMF Core Team Manager
For questions on this project, please contact curator@list.woc.noaa.gov.
Motivation
Running a climate model simulation is a complex endeavor. Purdue University has created an online portal that simplifies much of this complexity by enabling users to run the Community Climate System Model (CCSM), now called CESM for Community Earth System Model, via a web interface. The ESMF Core Team has been working with Purdue to improve this capability by developing a version of the model that can export self-describing attributes. Additionally, Purdue has been working with Curator and the Earth System Grid (ESG) to display these attributes within ESG's model-metadata framework. This project is designed to be a test of an end-to-end modeling system in which the Purdue portal is used to configure and submit a CESM simulation, and the output data and metadata are archived back to ESG. A group of geologists at UC Davis are interested in comparing paleo-atmospheric climate model data to observational temperature and precipitation data they have collected. This project will seek to utilize the modified CESM model running within the Purdue portal to conduct multiple high resolution (T85) 100-year runs.
Approach
Self-describing CESM
ESMF's approach to attributes is described in detail in its online reference manual. Briefly, attributes are implemented by nestable Attribute Packages that define several community standards including the Climate and Forecast Convention (CF) and the Common Information Model (CIM). Attributes can be exported via XML or in some cases simple ASCII TAB-delimited files. ESMF is working with CESM to implement attributes within the CESM baseline to document the model structure and to provide real-time simulation provenance.
Display of model metadata with ESG
Curator has been actively involved with the EU's Metafor project to define and display model metadata for the upcoming CMIP5 project. Metafor has created the Common Information Model (CIM) schema under which all climate models involved in CMIP5 will be described. Curator and ESG have worked to make XML files in the CIM format ingestible into ESG and displayable within the model metadata framework. The XML files that the new version of CESM will export match this format can ingested just like CMIP5 metadata.
Purdue Portal
The CCSM (Community Climate System Modeling) portal at Purdue allows users to compose, configure, and submit CCSM simulations to the Steele cluster at Purdue University which is one of the TeraGrid resource providers funded by NSF. This portal was developed by the Scientific Solutions Group in Rosen Center for Advanced Computing at Purdue University.The project may use the Purdue portal itself or a local version.
