The Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model Running on the Frontier Exascale System
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Donahue, Aaron.
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We present an efficient and performance portable implementation of the Simple Cloud Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM). SCREAM is a full featured atmospheric global circulation model with a nonhydrostatic dynamical core and state-of-the-art parameterizations for microphysics, moist turbulence and radiation. It has been written from scratch in C++ with the Kokkos library used to abstract the on-node execution model for both CPUs and GPUs. SCREAM is one of only a few global atmosphere models to be ported to GPUs. As far as we know, SCREAM is the first such model to run on both AMD GPUs and NVIDIA GPUs, as well as the first to run on nearly an entire Exascale system (Frontier). On Frontier, we obtained a record setting performance of 1.26 simulated years per day for a realistic cloud resolving simulation.
Abstract not provided.
Focal Area: This idea is best aligned with predictive modeling. It targets Earth System Model improvement and uncertainty quantification
Focal Area(s): Rather than augment or replace physical models with machine learning, we instead preserve the existing models and augment the underlying code with faster surrogate models created by generative adversarial networks (GAN). To leverage the performance optimization, we also propose a runtime system and user interfaces that allow prediction and tracking of accumulated error as well as dynamic, per-process decision making as to which model (if any) to use for each iteration. Science Challenge: This proposal sits at the nexus of two hard problems. First, climate models based on machine learning will be, by their nature, difficult to trust once their predictions begin diverging from the consensus. Second, compilers and hardware have been making only incremental performance gains for decades. GPGPUs have provided a welcome performance boost for codes that can take advantage of them, but there is no similar technology on the horizon to provide the next performance leap.
Parameterizations of moist convection in atmospheric models are notoriously problematic, and while global cloud resolving models (GCRM) are often touted as the ultimate solution, the computational cost is a considerable hurdle to overcome. Machine learning emulation of GCRMs for predictive modelling can leverage the DOE’s computational resource investments and allow widespread use of GCRMs such that traditional parameterizations become obsolete for most applications.