Kameleon Next-Gen: A new python-based architecture for space weather model access and interpolation

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) facilitates science discovery for researchers, educators and partnering institutions by providing computational resources and domain expertise to host, run, and visualize space weather simulations. Using the Runs-on-Request (RoR) system, CCMC users may download model results in CDF or HDF5 format and access them via the CCMC's Kameleon Software Suite, a C++ library of specialized model readers and interpolators. While computationally efficient, this approach delays the onboarding of new models. Recognizing the need to scale, we are developing a new Kameleon framework that allows us to build on existing Fortran readers and interpolators, utilizing python as glue code. This extensible, scalable approach permits us to focus Kameleon development on its primary use case as a high-level Application Programming Interface (API) for space weather models by providing interpolation, unit conversions, and coordinate transformations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach using a variety of space weather simulations.