National Academies Press: OpenBook

Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling (2001)

Chapter: Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
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Appendix C

Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers

I. General information
  1. Name of Institution:

  2. Name of Research Group (if applicable):

  3. Name and contact details of person completing this survey:

    Name

    Position

    Address

    Phone

    Fax

    e-mail

  4. Please indicate the primary funding sources for your modeling efforts and an approximate percent breakdown where there is more than one source.

  5. How would you describe the purpose(s) of your modeling efforts?

  6. What percentage of your modeling activities are devoted to operational versus research purposes?

  7. Please describe groups with which you have significant collaboration and briefly describe the nature of this collaboration.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
II. Current U.S. Modeling capabilities
  1. Please provide your opinion on current U.S. climate and weather modeling capabilities relative to overseas efforts. Please describe where differences in capabilities exist and what you feel are the causes for these differences.

  2. If you stated that U.S. climate and weather modeling capabilities are behind those of other countries, do you have any suggestions to remedy this deficiency?

III. Computational resources

Resources currently in use

  1. What are the manufacturers and models of the computer systems you rely on for your modeling efforts?

  2. What was the year of installation or of the last major upgrade to each of these systems?

  3. How many processors are currently operating on each of these systems?

  4. What is the estimate of sustained system performance (Gflops) of each of these systems?

  5. What is the central memory (GB) and secondary disc storage for each system (GB/TB)?

  6. How many CPU hours are used per month? What is the cost of this time?

  7. Is computational time shared with the wider community? If so, how is this interaction organized?

Future requirements needed to improve climate and weather modeling efforts

  1. Please list any future upgrades that are planned to your current systems.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
  1. What additional upgrades would be incorporated if funds were available?

  2. Does modeling capacity or capability limit your current activities or does some other factor? Could you make use of additional modeling capacity or capability for additional activities?

IV. Models
  1. Please provide your thoughts on the relative merits and hindrances of running your models on massively parallel processing systems relative to parallel vector architectures.

  2. Are model results produced by your facility made available to a wider scientific community? If so, are any restrictions placed on the data?

  3. What climate and/or weather models are run at your institution? (please also include specifics on model type)

  4. Please provide a detailed description of these models including the following:

    1. minimum grid size that can be used

    2. maximum number of vertical levels that can be used

    3. atmospheric constituents that are used to force the model including aerosols

    4. modules that are available to model earth systems (e.g. land surface vegetation, atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemistry (both land and ocean), terrestrial hydrology (both surface and soil hydrology), sea ice, etc.)

    5. treatment of boundaries in the model (e.g. swamp ocean, specifies SSTs etc.)

    6. the minimum time-step that can be used in the model

  5. In an attempt to gauge the maximum achievable performance (Rpeak) of your systems in a manner that is comparable to other systems reported in this survey we would appreciate the following information. What is the approximate run time needed to simulate 15 model years on your fastest computer using your highest resolution model? Assume that it is dedicated to the task and that optimal multi-tasking (e.g., running as many separate simulations as can be accommodated by all of the machine's processors and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×

dividing the final wallclock time by the number of simulations) is utilized? Please be specific as to the parameters used during this test.

  1. How “portable” is your code without experiencing major performance loss?

  2. What future improvements are being planned for this model?

V. Human resources

Within this section, we would like to develop a profile of the computational and human resources that are presently directed toward modeling in the U.S.

  1. What is the current number of staff that are directly involved with the following and their approximate annual cost:

    1. Science/Research

    2. Hardware maintenance

    3. Software tool development

    4. Model code development

    5. Model simulation interpretation

  2. Are the number of staff supporting your efforts sufficient? If not, please describe where improvements are needed.

  3. When staffing positions in the categories listed above, what are the main difficulties, if any, involved (i.e. level of training required, salary requirements).

  4. Please describe any future changes in staffing that are planned.

  5. Are you currently planning to (or intending to in the future) convert model codes to run on massively parallel machines? If currently converting, what experience do you have with this process? If intending to in the future, what are your plans for doing so?

VI. Miscellaneous
  1. Do you feel that your modeling efforts are being limited by lack of sufficient high-end computing resources? By people? By other resources? By any other factors?

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
  1. What is your highest priority if some of these limiting factors are removed?

  2. Do you have any other comments that you feel this panel should be aware of?

  3. This survey was distributed to the groups listed below. If there is a group that has not been included in this list that you feel should be considered as part of our data collection, please provide us with the name and address of this institution and the person to whom this survey should be directed.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
Page 95
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
Page 96
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
Page 97
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
Page 98
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Questionnaire Sent to Large and Intermediate Modeling Centers." National Research Council. 2001. Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10087.
×
Page 99
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Information derived from climate modeling has become increasingly important in recent years. More and more we understand that climate variability and change impacts society and that dealing with climate-related disasters, conflicts, and opportunities requires the best possible information about the past, present, and future of the climate system. To this end, Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling describes ways to improve the efficacy of the U.S. climate modeling enterprise, given the current needs and resources. It discusses enhanced and stable resources for modeling activities, focused and centralized operational activities, how to give researchers access to the best computing facilities, the creation of a common modeling and data infrastructure, and research studies on the socioeconomic aspects of climate and climate modeling.

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