End-to-End Workflows for Coupled Climate and Hydrological Modeling

In order to examine the effects of environmental changes on local watersheds, it has become increasingly important to be able to interoperate between diverse models and document and share the resulting data. To this end, we are prototyping an end-to-end workflow that executes multiple, distributed models, loosely couples the model components, and disseminates the model results and metadata using a data portal. This project is made up of three major components and is implemented in multiple phases. The main components include the interface to the models for configuration and execution, the interface to the portal for data dissemination, and the workflow that provides the glue to make it all work together. The models being coupled are a high performance atmospheric model (currently represented by a stubbed-out ESMF Component) and the hydrological model, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool). Each model is accessed via standard interfaces (OpenMI, ESMF), set up as web services, and in the final product, the resulting data will be published to the ESG (Earth System Grid) or other data portal. Managing the model execution and coupling is initially handled by the OpenMI Configuration Manager, but may eventually be replaced by a more extensive workflow application, such as Kepler. The resulting product is an end-to-end, self-describing and repeatable workflow that demonstrates one-way interactive systems involving climate and other models can be created to address emerging questions about climate impacts.