Why Climate Modelers Think We Need a Really, Really Big

Computer

Phil Jones Climate, Ocean and Sea Ice Modeling (COSIM)

Climate Change Prediction ProgramCo-PI SciDAC CCSM Collaboration

Climate System

Climate Modeling Goals• Understanding processes and how they

interact (only one on-going experiment)• Attribution of causes of observed climate

change• Prediction

– Natural variability (ENSO, PDO, NAO)– Anthropogenic climate change (alarmist

fearmongering) – IPCC assessments– Rapid climate change

• Input on energy policy

Climate Change

IPCC TAR 2001

Greenhouse Gases• Energy production• Bovine flatulence• Presidential campaigning

Rapid Climate Change

Polar and THC

State of the Art

• T85 Atmosphere (150km)• Land on same• 1 degree ocean (100km)• Sea ice on same• Physical models only – no biogeochemistry• 5-20 simulated years per CPU day

– Limited number of scenarios

Community Climate System Model

OceanPOP

IceCICE/CSIM

AtmosphereCAM

LandLSM/CLM

Flux Coupler

7 States10 Fluxes

6 States6 Fluxes

4 States3 Fluxes

7 States9 Fluxes

6 Fluxes 11 States10 Fluxes

6 States13 Fluxes

6 States6 Fluxes

Once

OnceOnce

Once

perper

perper

day

hour

hour

hour

NSF/DOEPhysical Models(No biogeochem)150km

100km

Performance

Performance Portability• Vectorization

– POP easy (forefront of retro fashion)– CAM, CICE, CLM

• Blocked/chunked decomposition– Sized for vector/cache– Load balanced distribution of blocks/chunks– Hybrid MPI/OpenMP– Land elimination

Performance Limitations

• Atmosphere– Dynamics (spectral or FV), comms– Physics, flops

• Ocean– Baroclinic, 3d explicit, flops/comms– Barotropic, 2d implicit, comms

• All– timestep

Prediction and AssessmentMany century-scale

simulations (>2500yrs) @~5yrs/day

Cycle vampires:Many dedicated cycles

at computer centers

Attribution

Stott et al, Science 2000

“Simulations of the response to natural forcings alone … do not explain the warming in the second half of the century”

“..model estimates that take into account both greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols are consistent with observations over this*period” - IPCC 2001

The annual mean change of temperature (map) andthe regional seasonal change (upper box: DJF; lower box: JJA) for the scenarios A2 and B2

The annual mean change of precipitation (map) andthe regional seasonal change (upper box: DJF; lower box: JJA) for the scenarios A2 and B2

If elected, we plan…

• High resolution– Cloud resolving atmosphere (10km)– Eddy-resolving ocean (<10km)– Regional prediction

• Fully coupled biogeochemistry– Source-based scenarios

• More scenarios, more ensembles– Uncertainty quantification

Towards Regional Prediction

Resolution and Precipitation

CCM3 extreme precipitation events depend on model resolution. Here we are using as a measure of extreme precipitation events the 99th percentile daily precipitation amount. Increasing resolution helps the CCM3 reproduce this measure of extreme daily precipitation events.

(DJF) precipitation in the California region in 5 simulations, plus observations. The 5 simulations are: CCM3 at T42 (300 km), CCM3 at T85 (150 km) , CCM3 at T170 (75 km), CCM3 at T239 (50 km), and CAM2 with FV dycore at 0.4 x 0.5 deg.

Eddy-Resolving Ocean

0.1 deg0.28 deg

Obs 2 deg

Only decades…

Chemistry, Biogeochemistry

• Atmospheric chemistry– Aerosols, ozone, GHG

• Ocean biogeochemistry– Phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, elemental cycling,

trace gases, yada, yada…

• Land Model– Carbon, nitrogen cycling, dynamic vegetation

• Source-based scenarios– Specify emissions rather than concentrations

• Sequestration strategies (land and ocean)

Aerosol Uncertainty

Atmospheric Chemistry• Gas-phase chemistry with emissions, deposition, transport and photo-

chemical reactions for 89 species. • Experiments performed with 4x5 degree Fvcore – ozone concentration at

800hPa for selected stations (ppmv)• Mechanism development with IMPACT

– A)    Small mechanism (TS4), using the ozone field it generates for photolysis rates.

– B)     Small mechanism (TS4), using an ozone climatology for photolysis rates.

– C)    Full mechanism (TS2), using the ozone field it generates for photolysis rates.

Zonal mean Ozone, Ratio A/C

Zonal mean Ozone, Ratio B/C

Ocean Biogeochemistry

•Iron Enrichment in the Parallel Ocean Program•Surface chlorophyll distributions in POPfor 1996 La Niña and 1997 El Niño

Global DMS Flux from the Ocean using POP

The global flux of DMS from the ocean to the atmosphere is shown as an annual mean. The globally integrated flux of DMS from the ocean to the atmosphere is 23.8 Tg S yr-1 .

Increasing the deficit (1010-1012)

• Resolution (103-105)– x100 horiz, x10 timestep, x5-10 vert

• Completeness (102)– Biogeochem (30-100 tracers)

• Fidelity (102)– Better cloud processes, dynamic land, others

• Increase length/number of runs(103)– Run length (x100)– Number of scenarios/ensembles (x10)

Storage

• Atmosphere– T85 29 GB/sim-yr, 0.08 GB/tracer– T170 110 GB/sim-yr, 0.3 GB/tracer

• Ocean– 1 1.7 GB/sim-yr, 0.2 GB/tracer– 0.1 120 GB/sim-yr, 17 GB/tracer

Beyond Moore’s Law

• Algorithms– 50% of past improvements– Tracer-friendly algorithms (inc remap advect)– Subgrid schemes– Implicit or other methods

Remapping Advection

• monotone• multiple tracers free• 2nd order

Subgrid Orography Scheme

• Reproduces orographic signature without increasing dynamic resolution

• Realisitic precipitation, snowcover, runoff

• Month of March simulated with CCSM

Comparison of sea ice shear (%/day) from CICE (a,c) Comparison of sea ice shear (%/day) from CICE (a,c) and ‘old’ (b,d) modelsand ‘old’ (b,d) models

Feb 20, Feb 20, 19871987

Feb 20, Feb 20, 19871987

Feb 26, Feb 26, 19871987

Feb 26, Feb 26, 19871987

(a)(a)

(c)(c)

(b)(b)

(d)(d)

Beyond Moore’s Law

• New architectures– Improved single-processor performance– Scaling vs. throughput