Development of a New Dynamical Core for the Unified Model: Portable, Scalable Performance

Writing good computer programs that model complex phenomena, such as the weather and climate change, to run on the fastest computers is necessary to allow scientific investigation to proceed as rapidly as possible. The development of new codes involves experts in several different areas to cooperate: the scientist has to has to develop the mathematical model that will provide the desired scientific insights, algorithm developers have to turn the model into a step-by-step procedure which enables the model to be applied to a particular problem (calculating tomorrows weather from today's, or predicting the climate in a hundred years time). Finally, the algorithm has to be coded in a programming language that enables a computer to do the calculations for the scientist. Computers continue to get faster, and the technology used to build them is constantly changing, leading to new challenges for algorithm and program developers. This project brings together experts from each of the areas of expertise who will work together to create the next generation of a key component in weather and climate simulation, the dynamical core, which, basically, models the movement of air in the atmosphere. Our contribution to this effort is to help make sure that the algorithms developed can be efficiently programmed for running on today's computers and be easily moved to future computers, despite changes in hardware technology.