E3SM Water Cycle Visualization Project (Final Report)

Abstract

Motivated by the need to improve visualizations of Earth's complex water cycle, this team embarked on non-trivial tasks to push from traditional methods of viewing data from simulations as static line graphs and contour plots into new realms with multiple dimensions (three spatial dimensions and the time component) viewable at once. To do this, we chose to feature the extremes in the general circulation of the atmosphere because these Earth system elements are short-lived, but impactful events. We used simulation data produced by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM),which is designed to answer DOE science questions using DOE computing facilities. The E3SM project includes three sets of simulation experiments: cryosphere, bio-geochemical cycles, and the water cycle. The water cycle experiment campaign includes a set of simulations designed to understand how the water cycle will change in coming decades under a changing climate.