Principal Investigators:
Ravi S Nanjundiah, Professor
P N Vinayachandran, Professor
Sathish S Vadhiyar, Associate Professor
Description:
Monsoons play a vital role in modulating the life of people in India (in particular) and East-South Asia in general. More than about a quarter of the human population is influenced by this gigantic climate system. Hence prediction of the monsoons has been one of the earliest challenges taken on in Meteorology starting with the pioneering efforts of Sir Gilbert Walker in the early 20th Century. With climate change being a major cause of concern it is necessary to understand the impact of this on the monsoons. However, prediction of monsoons has been a major problem for most numerical models. The complex set of processes involving ocean, atmosphere and land with the highest mountains in the world and interacting dynamically make it a difficult system to model and simulate. Monsoon simulation present challenges from computational and climate modelling stand points which need to be addressed. Recent improvements in computational technologies have facilitated incorporating physical processes in a more realistic fashion. New emerging technologies such as the Intel® Xeon Phi™ present an opportunity that did not exist before to accelerate climate related computations.
The IPCC-MMTC plans to address the issue of computational challenges related to modelling of climate. We propose to analyze NCAR CESM's computational profile and adapt appropriate strategies to improve its speed exploiting features of Intel Xeon Phi. All computational components of CESM will be examined to determine candidates to be taken up for acceleration. Issues related to scalability and load imbalances will also be addressed. The work done in this IPCC will be complementary to the one taken up by the IPCC on Climate and Weather at NCAR. The experience gained in this effort would be disseminated through lectures in workshops/conferences, at seminars inside and outside IISc and by means of journal publications, technical reports and white papers. The modified software developed through this effort would be made available as open source software through the NCAR CESM repository.