Bringing high performance climate modeling into the classroom
Lan Zhao, Wonjun Lee, Carol Song, Matthew S. Huber, A. Goldner · 2010
Climate science educators face great challenges on combining theory with hands-on practices in teaching climate modeling. Typical model runs require large computation and storage resources that may not be available on a campus. Additionally, the training and support required to bring novices up to speed would consume significant class time. The same challenges also exist across many other science and engineering disciplines. The TeraGrid science gateway program is leading the way of a new paradigm in addressing such challenges. As part of the TeraGrid science gateway initiative, The Purdue CCSM portal aims at assisting both research and education users to run Community Climate System Model (CCSM) simulations using the TeraGrid high performance computing resources. It provides a one-stop shop for creating, configuring, running CCSM simulations as well as managing jobs and processing output data. The CCSM portal was used in a Purdue graduate class for students to get hands-on experience with running world class climate simulations and use the results to study climate change impact on political policies. The CCSM portal is based on a service-oriented architecture with multiple interfaces to facilitate training. This paper describes the design of the CCSM portal with the goal of supporting classroom users, the challenges of utilizing the portal in a classroom setting, and the solutions implemented. We present two student projects from the fall 2009 class that successfully used the CCSM portal.