GEOS-Chem Online User's Guide

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16. High Performance GEOS-Chem

High Performance GEOS-Chem (GCHP) is a hybrid version of the standard GEOS-Chem code (GEOS-Chem Classic) that includes an additional software layer consisting of the Earth System Model Framework (ESMF) and Message Passing Interface (MPI) parallelization libraries. It enables distributed memory execution in high-performance computing (HPC) environments. This will facilitate global GEOS-Chem simulations at extremely fine horizontal resolution (e.g. 0.25°).

GCHP has the following advantages over the GEOS-Chem Classic model:

• Multi-node architecture: As GCHP uses MPI rather than OpenMP for parallelization, it can be run on an arbitrary number of cores, and over an arbitrary number of machines.

• Ultra-fine resolution global simulations: Without the memory limits of a single-machine architecture, the only limit on GCHP is the resolution of your input data.

• No more polar singularity: GCHP uses the "cubed-sphere" geometry for all operations, leveraging the GFDL FV-cubed (FV3) transport core. This avoids the polar singularity inherent to regular lat-lon grids.

• HEMCO used for all inputs: Every initial and boundary condition is now read from NetCDF files through HEMCO. This means that all data, including met data, can be regridded on the fly.

• Grid-independent compile process: Grid resolution is set at run time, and no recompilation is required.

For more information about getting started with GCHP, please visit the main GEOS-Chem HP development wiki page.

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