ALCF Science 1 - Argonne National Laboratory

argonne leadership computing facility
Earth Science
How Can More Intricate Climate Models Help Curb Global Warming?
The effects of climate change are apparent in degrading air quality,
intensified tropical storms, and the resulting destruction of coral reefs
that protect the coasts from erosion and destructive waves. Global
warming increases the occurrence of droughts, heat waves, wildfires,
and floods. Scientists must improve the understanding of the impact
of global warming so that society can optimally address climate
adaptation considerations.
Advanced computation, like that possible on the Blue Gene/P at the
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), allows researchers at
the DOE laboratories and National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) to develop more complex and intricate climate models. The
vital information these improved models provide will help guide
environmental policy.
The Department of Energy awards allocations of computing resources
for climate studies across multiple laboratories through the INCITE
program. In turn, the Climate Science Computational End Station
(CCES) organizes and coordinates these computational efforts.
Using ALCF resources, CCES is advancing climate science through
both aggressive model development activity and an extensive suite
of climate simulations to correctly simulate the global carbon cycle
and its feedback to the climate system, including its variability and
modulation by ocean and land ecosystems.
Researchers are testing a new,
highly scalable method for
solving the fluid dynamics of the
atmosphere for use in future
climate simulations. This model,
called HOMME, has run with a
resolution as high as 1/8 th of a
degree of latitude on more than
80,000 cores.
Next, researchers will use HOMME
to perform standard climate
model benchmark simulations for
comparisons with other models.
They will also test the new version
of the Community Earth System
Model on the ALCF’s Blue Gene/P.
INCITE Allocation:
30 Million Hours
“As climate models evolve into
fully integrated and realistic earth
system models, the complexity
of the simulations becomes
enormous. Modeling the climate
at these levels of complexity in a
timely fashion requires massively
parallel machines for fine-scale
computational grids and expensive
biogeochemistry and atmospsheric
chemistry packages. It is simply not
possible without the opportunity
afforded by the INCITE program.”
INCITE PROGRAM
21
--Tom Bettge, Coordinator for the CCES
Total precipitable water, a measure of how
much moisture is in the air from a single
moment in time in the global simulation
of the atmosphere at a resolution of half a
degree of latitude. (Figure provided by
Mark Taylor, Sandia National Laboratories.)
Contact Warren Washington
National Center for Atmospheric Research | wmw@ucar.edu