2019 CSDMS meeting-020

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Bridging boundaries: a preliminary review of the multi-scale and multi-process models in CSDMS model repositories

Yu Zhang, Los Alamos National Lab Los Alamos New Mexico, United States. yuzhang@lanl.gov
Joel Rowland, Los Alamos National Lab Los Alamos New Mexico, United States. jrowland@lanl.gov


Numerical models are effective and efficient tools for understanding the interactions among earth surface processes, including hydrological, biogeochemical, geomorphological, and ecological processes. These models with various complexities test hypotheses and make predictions within certain pre-defined model boundaries. These boundaries, on the one hand, reduce the complexity and noise of the system by ignoring the processes outside the boundary, which may only play a minor role in affecting the dynamics of the modeling system. On the other hand, some key processes that have a first-order control on the system dynamics may be unreasonably excluded from the modeling system. With the rapid growth of interdisciplinary researches, there is a more urgent need of revisiting the definition of the boundaries in the current numerical models to understand the gaps in bridging the boundaries between disciplines. This study is developed to meet this need. We investigated the models in the CSDMS model repositories by analyzing the process integration, boundary conditions, and spatial and temporal scales and summarized the potential gaps between boundaries that the current models present. This is the first study that conducts a comprehensive review of the models in the earth system modeling community, which provide insights for future model development and implementation across boundaries.