Collaborative Research: Frameworks: OpenEarthscape - Transformative Cyberinfrastructure for Modeling and Simulation in the Earth-Surface Science Communities

我们周围的景观不断变化。有时变化是缓慢的：河流弯曲迁移，土壤侵蚀从一个领域，瀑布雕刻上游的方式。有时候变化发生得很快：山体滑坡、洪水、侵蚀海滩的冬季风暴。为了理解、管理和预测这些过程，科学家们依靠计算机模拟模型。该项目开发软件工具，使仿真建模更容易，更容易获得，更有效。这些产品中有一个网站，研究人员和学生都可以通过该网站了解和实验各种环境模拟模型，而无需在自己的计算机上安装任何东西。该门户网站利用了一种技术，将文本、图片和计算机代码组合在一个在线文档中。该项目还开发了改进的计算机编程库，旨在使研究人员更容易，更有效地创建新的模拟模型。该项目为参加科罗拉多州暑期项目的大学生提供计算技能培训，这些项目为传统上代表性不足的学生群体提供服务。该项目还通过创建一个在线动画模拟来说明景观如何响应各种地质事件而演变，从而促进地质学方面的公众教育。随着探索地球表面变化的科学变得更加定量和面向预测，它们越来越依赖于计算建模和模型数据集成。该项目开发了OpenEarthscape：一套社区开发的网络资源，用于模拟和模型数据集成，重点关注九个高优先级的地球科学前沿。产品和活动包括EarthscapeHub：一个提供轻松访问模型、工具和库的EarthscapeHub服务器;创建和共享可重现分析的新能力;以及对当前用于模型构建和耦合的编程库的重大增强。OpenEarthscape通过构建新技术来提高性能，并开发基本模型接口API标准的扩展版本来解决并行架构和耦合问题，从而促进效率。OpenEarthscape通过改进的数据I/O和可视化库功能以及用于高效软件分发和跨平台兼容性的社区资源来提高研究生产力。更广泛的影响包括与支持传统上代表性不足的学生群体的本科研究项目的合作，项目团队为科学计算提供入门培训。一个新颖的教育元素是开放地球景观模拟器：一个网络托管的可视化模拟一个微大陆的演变，以应对各种地质事件。该模拟器为学生和公众提供了一个有趣的地球景观动力学的可视化，并为研究界提供了一个模板，以确定我们目前的理解缺陷。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The landscape around us changes constantly. Sometimes change is slow: a river bend migrates, soil erodes from a field, a waterfall carves its way upstream. Sometimes change happens fast: a landslide, a flood, a winter storm eroding beaches. To understand, manage, and forecast such processes, scientists rely on computer simulation models. This project develops software tools to make simulation modeling easier, more accessible, and more efficient. Among the products is a website through which researchers and students alike can learn about and experiment with a variety of environmental simulation models, without needing to install anything on their own computers. This web portal takes advantage of a technology that combines text, pictures, and computer code in a single online document. The project also develops improved computer-programming libraries designed to make it easier and more efficient for researchers to create new simulation models. The project contributes computing-skills training for college students enrolled in Colorado-based summer programs that serve traditionally underrepresented student populations. The project also promotes public education in geology, by creating an online animated simulation illustrating how landscapes evolve in response to various geologic events.As the sciences that probe Earth's changing surface become more quantitative and prediction-oriented, they increasingly rely on computational modeling and model-data integration. This project develops OpenEarthscape: an integrated suite of community-developed cyber resources for simulation and model-data integration, focusing on nine high-priority geoscience frontiers. Products and activities include EarthscapeHub: a JupyterHub server providing easy access to models, tools, and libraries; new capacity for creating and sharing reproducible analyses; and major enhancements to current programming libraries for model construction and coupling. OpenEarthscape catalyzes efficiency by building new technology to improve performance and developing an extended version of the Basic Model Interface API standard to address parallel architecture and coupling. OpenEarthscape fosters research productivity with improved library capabilities for data I/O and visualization, and with community resources for efficient software distribution and cross-platform compatibility. Broader impacts include partnership with undergraduate research programs that support traditionally underrepresented student populations, with the project team contributing introductory training in scientific computing. A novel educational element is the OpenEarthscape Simulator: a web-hosted visual simulation of a micro-continent evolving in response to various geologic events. The simulator provides students and the general public with an intriguing visualization of Earthscape dynamics and provides a template for the research community to identify defects in our current understanding.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.