F4ESS – a framework for interdisciplinary data-driven earth system science

Earth system science is an interdisciplinary effort to understand the fundamentals and interactions of environmental processes. Interdisciplinary research is challenging since it demands the integration of scientific schemes and practices from different research fields into a collaborative work environment. This paper introduces the framework F4ESS that supports this integration. F4ESS provides methods and technologies that facilitate the development of integrative work environments for Earth system science. F4ESS enables scientists a) to outline structured and summarized descriptions of scientific procedures to facilitate communication and synthesis, b) to combine a large variety of distributed data analysis software into seamless data analysis chains and workflows, c) to visually combine and interactively explore the manifold spatiotemporal data and results to support understanding and knowledge creation. The F4ESS methods and technologies are generic and can be applied in various scientific fields. We discuss F4ESS in the context of the interdisciplinary investigation of flood events.