{"id":2008,"date":"2010-11-18T20:15:42","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T01:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=2008"},"modified":"2010-11-18T22:24:22","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T03:24:22","slug":"plug-compatability-and-climate-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/2010\/11\/plug-compatability-and-climate-models\/","title":{"rendered":"Plug-compatibility and climate models"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following my post last week about <a title=\"Serendipity: Climate Model Coding Standards\" href=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=1986\" target=\"_blank\">Fortran coding standards for climate models<\/a>, Tim reminded me of a much older paper that was very influential in the creation (and sharing) of coding standards across climate modeling centers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kalnay E, Kanamitsu M, Pfaendtner J. <a title=\"Kalnay et al.\" href=\"http:\/\/adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/1989BAMS...70..620K\" target=\"_blank\">Rules for Interchange of Physical Parameterizations<\/a>&#8220;. <em>Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society<\/em>. 1989;70(6):620-622.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The paper is the result of a series of discussions in the mid-1980s across many different modeling centres (the paper lists 11 labs) about how to facilitate sharing of code modules. To simplify things, the paper assumes what is being shared are parameterization modules that operate in a single column of the model. Of course, this was back in the 1980s, which means the models were primarily atmospheric models, rather than the more comprehensive earth system models of today. The dynamical core of the model handles most of the horizontal processes (e.g. wind), which means that most of the remaining physical processes (the subject of these parameterizations) affect what happens vertically within a single column, e.g. by affecting radiative or convective transfer of heat between the layers. Plugging in new parameterization modules becomes much easier if this assumption holds, because the new module needs to be called once per time step per column, and if it doesn&#8217;t interact with other columns, it doesn&#8217;t mess up the vectorization. The paper describes a number of coding conventions, effectively providing an interface specification for single-column parameterizations.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting point about this paper is that popularized the term &#8220;plug compatibility&#8221; amongst the modeling community, along with the (implicit) broader goal of designing all models to be plug-compatible. (although it cites <a title=\"Roger A. Pielke and Raymond W. Arritt, A Proposal to Standardize Models. BAMS vol 65, Oct 1984\" href=\"http:\/\/pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/09\/nt-12.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Pielke &#038; Arrit<\/a> for the origin of the term). Unfortunately, the goal seems to be still very elusive. While most modelers will agree accept that plug-compatibility is desirable, a few people I&#8217;ve spoken to are very skeptical that it&#8217;s actually possible. Perhaps the strongest statement on this is from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Randall DA. <a title=\"Randall, BAMS 1996.\" href=\"http:\/\/adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/1996BAMS...77.2685R\" target=\"_blank\">A University Perspective on Global Climate Modeling<\/a>. <em>Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society<\/em>. 1996;77(11):2685-2690.<br \/>\np2687: &#8220;It is sometimes suggested that it is possible to make a plug-compatible global model so that an &#8220;outside&#8221; scientist can &#8220;easily make changes&#8221;. With a few exceptions (e.g. radiation codes), however, this is a fantasy, and I am surprised that such claims are not greeted with more skepticism.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He goes on to describe instances where parameterizations have been transplanted from one model to another, but likens it to a major organ transplant, but more painful. The problem is that <a title=\"Serendipity: High Level Architecture of Earth System Models\" href=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=1819\" target=\"_blank\">the various processes of the earth system<\/a> interact in complex ways, and these complex interactions have to be handled properly in the code. As Randall puts it: &#8220;&#8230;the reality is that a global model must have a certain architectural unity or it will fail&#8221;. In my interviews with climate modellers, I&#8217;ve heard many tales of it taking months, and sometimes years of effort to take a code module contributed by someone outside the main modeling group, and to make it work properly in the model.<\/p>\n<p>So plug compatibility and code sharing sound great in principle. In practice, no amount of interface specification and coding standards can reduce the essential complexity of earth system processes.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: most of the above is about plug compatibility of parameterization modules (i.e. code packages that live within the green boxes on the <\/em><a title=\"Bretherton Diagram of Earth System Processes\" href=\"http:\/\/www.geo.uni-bremen.de\/geomod\/staff\/gerrit\/irvine\/art\/bretherton_color.gif\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Bretherton diagram<\/em><\/a><em>). More progress has been made (especially in the last decade) in standardizing the interfaces between major earth system components (i.e. the arrows on the Bretherton diagram). That&#8217;s where <\/em><a title=\"E.g. See the OASIS coupler, widely used in European climate modeling labs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cerfacs.fr\/3-26887-The-OASIS-coupler-ant-its-applications.php\" target=\"_blank\"><em>standardized couplers<\/em><\/a><em> come in &#8211; see my post on the <\/em><a title=\"Serendipity: High Level Architecture of Earth System Models\" href=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=1819\" target=\"_blank\"><em>high level architecture of earth system models<\/em><\/a><em> for an introduction. The <\/em><a title=\"Workshop program\" href=\"https:\/\/is.enes.org\/services\/tools\/oasis\/workshop-on-coupling-technologies-for-earth-system-modelling-today-and-tomorrow-1\/workshop-programme\" target=\"_blank\"><em>IS-ENES workshop on coupling technologies<\/em><\/a><em> in December will be an interesting overview of the state of the art here, although I won&#8217;t be able to attend, as it clashes with the AGU meeting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following my post last week about Fortran coding standards for climate models, Tim reminded me of a much older paper that was very influential in the creation (and sharing) of coding standards across climate modeling centers: Kalnay E, Kanamitsu M, Pfaendtner J. Rules for Interchange of Physical Parameterizations&#8220;. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 1989;70(6):620-622. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2010,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions\/2010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}