Developing a Land Surface Modeling Workshop for NGEE Arctic scientists

Date Published
Organizers will host a workshop with the goal of giving NGEE Arctic scientists with limited or no computational or modeling experience a chance to run the E3SM Land Model (ELM), visualize model simulation output, and test questions using model simulations.
Objective

Over the course of the NGEE Arctic project, modelers have had opportunities to participate in field work, and a group of NGEE Arctic modelers is working to return the favor!  The goal of the planned workshop is for scientists with limited or no computational or modeling experience to gain familiarity with running and interpreting simulations from the E3SM Land Model (ELM). By the end of the workshop, participants will have a working version of the model that they can run on their own computer, understand how to run the model with different parameter values and inputs to answer science questions, and be able to visualize and interpret the model results.

New Science

Organizers hope to give participants the tools to understand how their data can inform model simulations and, for those who are interested, the ability to start doing their own modeling studies. The workshop will be hosted as a multiple-day hybrid event in October 2022. In preparation, a packaged form of ELM has been developed that can be easily installed and run on any computer (including personal computers running Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems) and will come complete with compiled packages of driver data and configuration settings to run the model at NGEE Arctic intensive field sites. The package will also include step-by-step tools for visualizing model output and changing model parameters to investigate science questions of interest to participants.

Impact

As part of the preparation for the workshop, organizers surveyed the NGEE Arctic team to gather information on their specific research interests and goals for becoming more familiar with ELM. There has been a strong response, with 25 respondents representing a variety of scientific areas, experience levels, and goals (see figure). We are now working to develop simulation approaches to addressing identified research questions of interest.

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Graph of responses of the NGEE Arctic team to a survey gauging interests in a modeling workshop

Responses of the NGEE Arctic team to a survey gauging interests in an upcoming modeling workshop.

Funding

This research was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 as part of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE Arctic) project.

For more information, please contact:

Benjamin Sulman

sulmanbn@ornl.gov