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Multi-lingual Jupyter notebooks for learning the Open Global Glacier Model
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  • Elizabeth Ultee,
  • Fabien Maussion,
  • Zora Schirmeister,
  • Daniel Frisinghelli,
  • Tatiana Leon Rojas
Elizabeth Ultee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Corresponding Author:ehultee@mit.edu

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Fabien Maussion
University of Innsbruck
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Zora Schirmeister
University of Innsbruck
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Daniel Frisinghelli
University of Innsbruck
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Tatiana Leon Rojas
National University of Engineering
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Abstract

Glaciers are major contributors to global sea level change and regional freshwater resources. In light of the worldwide societal importance of glacier change, we see a need for accessible glacier-education materials in many languages. We have developed a set of Jupyter notebooks, available in both Spanish and English, that coaches users through basic simulations with the Open Global Glacier Model (edu.oggm.org). The notebooks are freely available via GitHub (github.com/ehultee/CdeC-glaciologia), with no special software installation requirements for users. Participants in a week-long glaciology workshop at Clubes de Ciencia Peru 2019 used our notebooks to study glacier physics and make future projections for mountain glaciers of their choice. Only one participant had previously used Python, and none had experience with numerical modelling of Earth systems in any language. All were able to run the notebooks and explain their findings. Most participants were also able to modify the notebooks to conduct experiments of interest to them. We consider this a particularly successful case of science outreach, in that workshop participants are now equipped to explore their own important questions independently. The notebooks we have developed can support multilingual glaciology outreach; we hope that sharing our experience can support public geoscience more broadly.