Infrastructure for Lowering the Barrier to Computational Modeling of the Earth Surface

The ability to test hypotheses about surface processes coupled to both subsurface and atmospheric regimes is invaluable to research in the Earth and planetary sciences; to swiftly develop experiments using community resources is extraordinary.  However, creating a new model can demand a large investment of time, expert software skills, and can be constrained to adapting existing models with limited flexibility to address new questions.  Advancing the state of knowledge includes not only experimentation and publication, but also communication and distribution of large, and complex models and datasets.  Landlab is an open-source modeling toolkit for building, coupling, and exploring two-dimensional numerical models.  HydroShare is an online collaborative environment for sharing data and models.  Together, Landlab on HydroShare accelerates the development of new process models by providing (1) a set of tools for regular and irregular grid structures, data manipulation and visualization to make it faster and easier to develop new physical process components, (2) a suite of modular and interoperable process components that can be combined to create an integrated model; (3) cyber infrastructure that provides collaboration functions with multiple levels of sharing and privacy settings, Creative Commons license options, and DOI publishing, and 4) cloud access with high-speed processing from the CyberGIS HydroShare JupyterHub server at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.  New users can run models from a web browser, while advanced users can execute and develop models from command line terminals.  Landlab on HydroShare supports the modeling continuum from fully developed modelling applications, prototyping new science tools, hands on research demonstrations, and classroom applications.  The HydroShare-Landlab-CyberGIS interoperability is a model of technology collaboration and tool exchange in the hydrologic modeling community.

对地表过程与地下及大气环境耦合假设的测试能力，对于地球与行星科学领域的研究而言，具有不可估量的价值；利用社区资源迅速开发实验尤为难得。然而，构建新的模型往往需要巨大的时间投入、专业技能，且往往受限于对现有模型的适应性，难以灵活应对新问题的挑战。推进知识进步不仅包括实验与发表，还涵盖大型且复杂的模型与数据集的沟通与分发。Landlab是一款开源的建模工具包，旨在构建、耦合和探索二维数值模型。HydroShare是一个在线协作环境，用于共享数据和模型。Landlab在HydroShare上的结合，极大地加速了新过程模型的开发，它提供了以下功能：（1）一套针对规则与不规则网格结构、数据处理与可视化的工具，以加快新物理过程组件的开发速度，并使之更加便捷；（2）一套模块化且可互操作的组件集，可组合以构建集成模型；（3）提供多级共享与隐私设置、Creative Commons许可选项和DOI发布的协同基础设施；（4）通过位于国家超级计算应用中心的CyberGIS HydroShare JupyterHub服务器提供的云访问，实现高速处理。新用户可以通过网页浏览器运行模型，而高级用户则可从命令行终端执行和开发模型。Landlab在HydroShare上支持从成熟建模应用、新型科学工具的原型设计、实践研究演示到课堂应用的建模连续体。HydroShare-Landlab-CyberGIS的互操作性，是水文建模社区中技术协作与工具交换的典范。