Metadata Development in the Earth System Curator                                                                                                               Spanning the Gap Between Models and Datasets Rocky Dunlap, Georgia Tech

Motivation Two primary products of the climate community: datasets and the models used to produce them Models Datasets

Motivation Many efforts in place to provide uniform access to datasets Additionally, groups like ESMF are working to develop frameworks for component exchanges and interoperability e.g., couple two different ocean models with the same atmosphere

Motivation However there is currently a gap between models and datasets Models and datasets are currently treated as distinct and separate entities Earth System Curator’s claim: This gap is actually an artificial barrier that inhibits access to resources and results

What is the Earth System Curator? The goal of the Earth System Curator project is to provide a transparent interface to climate models and their output data Models Datasets What do we need to make this happen?

Metadata Metadata is data about data What would it take to completely describe a particular climate model run? “completely” means you could reproduce the output bit for bit …… ……… ………… Model Metadata Model Run Output

Convergence of Models and Data ESC begins with a crucial insight: the descriptors used for comprehensively specifying a model configuration are also needed for a scientifically useful description of the model output data This leads to the convergence of models and data There is a need for a common metadata formalism to unify the treatment of models and data

(Simplified) System Overview Simulation Datasets ? Query Metadata Graphical User Interface Models

Research Approach Study metadata structures of existing projects in the climate community Create a common ontology that aligns the metadata models, while also allowing for eventual inclusion of other metadata sources Extensibility is a priority! The resulting metadata description will be the foundation of the Earth System Curator database

Current Efforts Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) NSF, NCAR, DoD, NASA, NOAA, DoE, MIT, UCLA, University of Michigan Earth System Grid (ESG) DoE SciDAC sponsored Labs: ANL, LBNL, LLNL, NCAR, ORNL GFDL Curator database

Earth System Modeling Framework Common modeling infrastructure for climate and weather models Components have standard interfaces which facilitates coupling ESMF already contains a number of metadata-rich structures for describing climate models gridded component, coupler component, field, bundle, state, clock, grid

ESMF Coupled Model Our goal is to extract the metadata needed to adequately describe hierarchical, coupled climate models

Earth System Grid Make output of high-resolution, long-duration climate simulations available to global-change impacts researchers Enable analysis and knowledge development from earth system models Increase productivity by linking users with needed data

Earth System Grid

GFDL Curator An initial shot at a database that describes both climate models and data Multiple compartments Models Variables Workflow Post Processing Data Portal

Conceptual Modeling

Why is this hard? Disagreement about what terms mean What is a model? What is a component? What is a coupler? What is a code base? Metadata must be as generic as possible while still being useful

Deliverables Allow researchers to archive and query Earth system models, experiments, model components, and model output data Perform technical compatibility checking How can we determine if two components will run together? What about scientific compatibility? Prototype auto-assembly of components to facilitate model runs Involves automatic code generation of simple couplers

Broader Impacts Improve climate prediction for policy makers Facilitate Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) by allowing fast setup and execution of experiments using different model components Encourage Curator-like activity in other domains Promote the use of Curator as a normative ontology

ESC Collaborators NSF Funded National Center for Atmospheric Research NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory MIT Georgia Tech

Thanks! Website: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/curator/ Questions?