In moving toward the radically open modeling, the Climate Collaboratorium Community will proceed along a series of stages. These stages will involve refinement along two dimensions.
- The first is increasing ability to compare multiple simulation runs, first across a single model and then across multiple models.
- The second is increasing ability to refine the workings of simulation software through the use of open source development techniques (see Figure 1).
As the Community moves along these stages, the tasks involved become increasingly difficult.
The starting point is current practice, here called Expert-Prepared Models, in which a small cadre of expert modelers builds a simulation model and releases the results of its model in presentations or publications.
The five stages that go beyond Expert Prepared Models and move toward the vision of radically open modeling are:
1. Live Interactive Use of a Single Model
2. Sharing Multiple Runs of a Single Model
4. Model Disaggregation and Swapping out of Modules
5. Massive Collaborative Model Development and Analysis of Runs