Collaborative Research: Earth System Curator: Spanning the Gap Between Models and Datasets

地球系统馆长合作将统一对与气候变化有关的模型和数据集的处理，方法是开发一种共同的语言--元数据形式主义--用来描述两者，并制作一套基于这种形式主义的工具原型，使研究人员能够无缝和轻松地操纵模型和数据集。合作伙伴包括麻省理工学院、普林斯顿大学、佐治亚理工学院和国家大气研究中心的计算机科学和地球科学研究人员。拟议的工作建立在两个正在进行的社区努力的基础上，即地球系统建模框架(ESMF)和地球系统网格II(ESG)。ESMF是一项国家倡议，旨在为国家的气候和天气模型开发通用的建模基础设施，包括耦合工具和标准建模实用程序。ESG的主要目标是通过使用网格、数据/元数据和门户技术，向全国范围内的全球变化影响研究人员提供使用气候模型进行的高分辨率、长时间模拟的输出。该团队将探索ESMF和ESG可以有效结合的那些方面，并将建立一个新的实体--地球系统馆长的原型，它跨越了两者之间的差距。馆长从一个关键的洞察力开始：用于全面指定模型配置的描述符对于模型输出数据的科学有用的描述也是必要的。开发一个描述两者的公共元数据模式将成为这一独特而强大的社区资源的基础。馆长将提供一个社区数据库，研究人员可以从该数据库中存档和查询广泛类别的地球系统模型、实验、模型组件和模型输出数据和结果。随后，研究人员将能够分析预先存在的运行的模型输出，或者访问模型并自行修改和运行，无论是在本地计算机上还是在计算网格的虚拟资源上。除了查询功能，该项目还将制作一个工具的原型，该工具将测试一组模型组件或数据集是否可以相互作用以形成应用程序。最后，作为馆长工作的一部分，还将制作组件包装器和应用程序自动生成工具的原型。馆长是在气候和相关研究中使用信息技术的社区愿景的一部分。馆长原型将有助于进一步建议和定义下一代建模和数据管理工具的形式，通过提供具体的表示来增加创新想法的可信度。此外，ESMF和ESG联合调查人员凭借其项目对生产软件的重视和广泛的客户基础，处于有利地位，可以在NSF资助的原型阶段之后将馆长工具转变为可行的产品。在馆长努力的过程中，将鼓励许多与ESMF和ESG有关的研究人员试用馆长软件并提供反馈。在馆长项目方面取得的进展将通过会议和出版物以及建立在对多组件高性能计算建模的共同需求、信息归档和检索的便利性以及模拟数字的相似性的基础上建立的关系网，对其他领域产生影响。虽然气候预测方面的进展直接归因于馆长本身的努力可能既难以跟踪又有限，但地球系统研究的综合环境对于在不久的将来解决世界气候问题至关重要，馆长是朝着这一方向迈出的明确一步。馆长还将被纳入佐治亚理工学院软件工程课程的项目基础设施。将准备适当的介绍性材料，并确定项目机会。许多项目机会将采取向公众提供气候数据的形式。通过这种方式，策展人不仅为软件工程专业的学生提供了参与实际正在进行的工程开发工作的机会，而且由此产生的项目将使地球科学更容易为公众所接受。

The Earth System Curator collaboration will unify the treatment of models and datasets relating to climate change by developing a common language - a metadata formalism - with which to describe the two, and by prototyping a set of tools based on that formalism that allows researchers to manipulate models and datasets seamlessly and with ease. The goal, in the end, is to increase the productivity of climate researchers and understanding of the Earth system.Collaborators include computer science and Earth science researchers at MIT, Princeton University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The work proposed builds on two ongoing community efforts, the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) and the Earth System Grid II (ESG). The ESMF is a national initiative to develop common modeling infrastructure for the nation's climate and weather models, including coupling tools and standard modeling utilities. The primary objective of ESG is to make the output of high-resolution, long-duration simulations performed with climate models available to global change impacts researchers nationwide, through the use of Grid, data/metadata, and portal technologies. The team will explore those aspects of ESMF and ESG that can be usefully aligned, and will prototype a new entity, the Earth System Curator, that spans the gap between the two.The Curator begins with a crucial insight: that the descriptors used for comprehensively specifying a model configuration are needed for a scientifically useful description of the model output data as well. The development of a common metadata schema that describes both will be the basis for this unique and powerful community resource. The Curator will provide a community database from which researchers can archive and query a wide class of Earth system models, experiments, model components, and model output data and results. Researchers will subsequently be able either to analyze model output from pre-existing runs, or to access a model and modify and run it themselves, either on a local computer or on the virtualized resources of the computational Grid. In addition to the query function, the project will prototype a tool that will test if sets of model components or datasets can interact to form an application. Finally, as part of the Curator effort, tools for auto-generation of component wrappers and applications will also be prototyped.The Curator is part of a community vision for the use of information technology in climate and related research. The Curator prototype will help to further suggest and define the form of next-generation modeling and data management tools, by offering a concrete representation to add credibility to innovative ideas. Further, the ESMF and ESG co-investigators, by virtue of their projects' emphases on production software and extensive customer bases, are in an excellent position to transition the Curator tools into a viable product following an NSF-funded prototype stage. Over the course of the Curator effort, many researchers associated with ESMF and ESG will be encouraged to try out and offer feedback on the Curator software. Advances achieved with the Curator project will influence other domains through conferences and publications, and through a web of relationships founded on a shared need for multi-component HPC modeling, ease of information archival and access, and similarities in simulation numerics. While the advances in climate prediction due directly to the Curator effort itself may be both difficult to track and modest, an integrated environment for Earth system research is critical to addressing world climate issues in the near future, and the Curator is a definitive step in that direction. The Curator will also be incorporated into the project infrastructure for software engineering courses at Georgia Tech. Appropriate introductory material will be prepared and project opportunities defined. Many of the project opportunities will take the form of making climate data accessible to the general public. In this way the Curator not only provides software engineering students an opportunity to participate in an actual ongoing engineering development effort, but the resultant projects will make Earth science more available to the general public.