From the Interim Program Manager: August 2019

Sally McFarlane, ARM Program Manager, DOE BER

The E3SM project continues to make good progress towards its goals. The following are recent accomplishments:

• Scientists published a landmark E3SM v1 water cycle overview paper and submitted a BGC overview paper and a high-resolution coupled v1 paper. Multiple papers on the details of the v1 simulations have been submitted or are very close to submission. To see the full list of recently published papers, please visit the E3SM Journal Publications page.
• The new BER-EESM (Biological and Environmental Research – Earth and Environmental System Modeling) compute platform, Compy, came online at PNNL in July 2019. The E3SM model and its tools were ported to this new machine and accounts are currently being created for new users.
• An important achievement during this past quarter was the conversion of the E3SM model build system from Perl scripts to Cmake. Another notable milestone includes adapting all analysis tools to support Python 3. NCO released its latest version, 4.8.1, which supports vertical regridding.
• The CMORization process that transforms E3SM model output to the standard CMIP6 format was finalized for the DECK experiments and the data is being actively published to ESGF CMIP6 archives.
• E3SM achieved a significant milestone in July 2019: the code freeze for the water cycle campaign. For the BGC campaign, the code freeze has been extended to the end of September 2019. After that, no new features will be allowed to merge into the master branch until E3SM’s version 2 is released.

Corinne Hartin, Detailee to DOE’s BER

In E3SM-associated news:

• DOE values communicating BER-funded science to the broader scientific research community, the scientifically interested public, and our stakeholders. Toward that end, the Data Management Program led by Jay Hnilo recently announced funding for two projects to support visualization of E3SM science simulation campaigns. One project, led by Erika Roesler at Sandia, will focus on visualization of the water cycle campaign, while the other project, led by John Patchett at Los Alamos, will focus on the visualization of the cryosphere campaign. We look forward to seeing their exciting visualizations over the next year.
• Aerosol-cloud interactions and their uncertainty in model simulations are getting increasing attention in the modeling community. The U.S. Climate Modeling Summit (a meeting of the major U.S. global modeling groups sponsored by the USGCRP Interagency Group on Integrative Modeling) recently selected aerosol-cloud interactions as a key topic for their 2020 meeting. The Earth System Model Development (ESMD) program recently announced funding for a new project, led by Po-Lun Ma at PNNL, to develop future generations of aerosol physics for E3SM v4, with a focus on processes important for improved simulations of aerosol-cloud interactions.
• BER is in the midst of reviewing two new projects focusing on the mid-Atlantic coastal region and Arctic coastal processes. While not many details can be shared at this point, these projects represent a new approach for BER that strongly integrates across the three modeling program activities: Earth System Model Development, Regional and Global Modeling Analysis, and Multisector Dynamics. If supported, these project teams are expected to work closely with E3SM scientists because the new projects include both E3SM development focused on elements needed to better simulate coastal processes and the use of E3SM to address coastal science questions.

Two important meetings will occur within the next few months:

• The E3SM Leadership team will meet in August in Denver to discuss near term (E3SM v2) and far-reaching plans (E3SM v3 and v4). Corinne Hartin will represent DOE BER at the Leadership Meeting.
• Initial planning has begun for a November E3SM all-hands science meeting in the Washington D.C. area, which will include the “ecosystem” projects (which use E3SM data or develop capabilities for E3SM) and other ESMD-funded projects working with E3SM.

Thanks for all of your hard work on the E3SM project, and we hope that you are having a great summer!

— Sally McFarlane, Interim Program Manager and Corinne Hartin, BER detailee