A Web-based Visual Analytic Framework for Understanding Large-scale Environmental Models: A Use Case for the Community Land Model

This study introduces a web-based visual analytic framework to better understand the software structures of large-scale environmental models. The framework integrates data management, software structures analysis, and web-based visualizations. A system for the Community Land Model (CLM) is developed to demonstrate the capability of the proposed framework. It consists of three major components: (1) a Fortran-syntax analysis tool that decomposes CLM source code into simpler forms; (2) an application tier that further analyzes and converts the prepro-cessed data into meaningful software structural information; (3) a web-based front end that is developed using state-of-the-art web technologies and visualization toolkit (e.g., D3.js). The framework provides users with easy access to the internal structures of complex environmental models. Currently, the prototype system is being used by CLM modelers and field scientists to tackle different environmental research problems.