Towards a Tiered Permafrost Modeling Cyberinfrastructure

永久冻土是指连续冻结至少两年的土地。永久冻土的分布对发现永久冻土的地区的生态系统和人类活动有重大影响。永久冻土数据和产品的提供和介绍对科学家、工程师、政策制定者、土著社区和普通公众都很重要。该项目将提高永久冻土模型的可及性，以帮助研究人员和其他非永久冻土模型专家利用模型来探索和研究永久冻土。特别是，该项目将促进学生、科学家和利益攸关方在线使用永久冻土模型。该项目将创建一个综合建模工具箱(IMT)，由代表一系列能力和复杂性的四个永久冻土模型组成。IMT将为那些想要使用永久冻土模型，但缺乏开发这些模型的专业知识和资源的学生、利益相关者和科学家提供轻松的在线访问。IMT将包括代表各种条件和地点的多组样本输入，以便能够立即使用任何永久冻土模型。该项目还将开发具有用户友好的前端界面的开放源码可视化工具，以绘制模型输出并将模型输出与观测值进行比较。最后，该项目将开发两个IMT应用程序来演示其实用性：1)高分辨率的阿拉斯加永久冻土地图；2)永久冻土模型和地貌模型之间的联系。该项目还吸引了学生，并包括几个讲习班和会议，以接触用户，并通过实际培训课程教他们如何使用永久冻土模型。

Permafrost is ground that is frozen for at least two consecutive years. The distribution of permafrost has a major impact on ecosystems and human activities in areas where it is found. Availability and presentation of permafrost data and products can be important for scientists, engineers, policy makers, indigenous communities, and the general public. This project will advance the accessibility of permafrost models in order to help researchers and others who are not permafrost modeling experts to employ models to explore and study permafrost. In particular, the project will promote the online use of permafrost models by students, scientists, and stakeholders. The project will create an Integrated Modeling Toolbox (IMT), consisting of four permafrost models representing a range of capability and complexity. The IMT will provide easy online access to students, stakeholders, and scientists who want to use permafrost models, but lack the expertise and resources to develop them. The IMT will include multiple sets of sample inputs representing a variety of conditions and locations to enable immediate use of any of the permafrost models. The project will also develop open source Visualization Tools with a user-friendly front-end interface to plot model outputs and compare model outputs to observations. Lastly, the project will develop two IMT applications to demonstrate its utility: 1) a high-resolution permafrost map of Alaska and 2) a link between a permafrost model and a geomorphology model. The project also engages students and includes several workshops and meetings to reach out to users and to teach them how to use the permafrost models with hands-on training sessions.