Design, implementation and use of a simulation data archive for coastal science

With many researchers now having easy access to supercomputers, coastal scientists are able to develop and run simulations that model the physical and ecological processes in ocean or nearshore areas in a distributed and collaborative environment. However, the increase in capacity of computational resources does not lead directly to a rapid improvement of the simulations themselves. Instead, it brings a new challenge that motivates scientists to fully utilize the huge amount of simulation data created in supercomputers, thus fostering advanced scientific research. Driven by the urgent need for in-depth investigations in Louisiana coastal areas, especially during hurricane seasons, a data center, which provides research communities with scientific data resources on demand, is imperative. In this paper, we present the design, implementation and use of such a simulation data archive for coastal science. The simulation data archive is capable of providing interfaces based on the requirements of user groups and its application incorporates multiple use cases. The enabling technology, as well as the challenges in the development of this simulation data archive, are also described in this paper.