umami: A Python package for Earth surface dynamics objective function construction

Models of Earth’s surface dynamics are typically designed to simulate timescales that range from years to geologic epochs (106+ years). They represent and evolve a primary state variable, Earth’s surface. Some applications may use other state variables (e.g., soil thickness). A diverse array of physical and chemical processes may be present. For example, the making and moving of water; the creation of soil and sediment from bedrock; the transport of mobile material due to hillslope processes, river erosion, and landslides; and the deposition of that material into the geologic archive. These models are used for applications as diverse as understanding limits on the height of mountain ranges and predicting the erosion, transport, and fate of contaminated material on human timescales.