7th Annual ESMF Community Meeting

May 28-30, 2008, in conjunction with the AGU Joint Assembly

Agenda || Register

Location

Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Hotel
1617 Southeast 17th Street
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316
1-954-626-1700
Across the street from the Broward County Convention Center

About the Meeting

The Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) is open source software for building and coupling Earth system modeling components. A multi-agency project, the framework is used extensively by groups at NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, universities, and elsewhere. More than 60 ESMF components representing many aspects of global and regional models have been created, including atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, coastal ocean, surface water/groundwater, wave, and biological and chemical processes. (See: http://www.esmf.ucar.edu/impacts/)

The meeting this year is intended for modelers at AGU who are interested in learning more about incorporating ESMF into their codes. The main topic will be two new ESMF releases, public release v3.1.0r and internal (beta) release v3.1.1. These releases are more powerful and have simpler user interfaces than the last public release, 2.2.2rp3, back in December 2006. ESMF is bundled with an exhaustive test suite and is regression tested nightly on more than two dozen platforms. New platforms supported include Solaris, Cygwin, and gfortran. (See: http://www.esmf.ucar.edu/download/platforms/)

The v3.1.0r public release includes completely reworked data structures for data blocks, data distributions, and grids. The software offers flexibility in how user data can be represented, what coupling transformations are supported, and how coupling scenarios can be set up. One of the key features of this public release is the ability to perform efficient, highly scalable parallel regridding with user-supplied interpolation weights. Regridding and redistribution operations can be executed within a coupler, or directly between components.

The v3.1.1 beta release adds the capability to compute bilinear and higher order interpolation weights in parallel, and adds support for observational data structures ("location streams"). It also introduces standard attribute packages and hierarchical metadata, important steps towards more automated strategies for interoperability and integration of modeling components into science portals.

Both releases are expected to be out in May, 2008.

Talks at the ESMF meeting (on Wednesday) and at AGU (Thursday) will also cover new developments in the NSF-funded Curator project (http://www.earthsystemcurator.org). Curator, in collaboration with ESMF, the Earth System Grid and other groups, is developing a database and distribution portal that enables users to search, browse, download, compare, and analyze datasets, model components, and models. This activity is linked to ESMF in a number of ways. Standard component interfaces enable models to be subdivided by discipline and archived in a form that is shareable by a variety of groups. ESMF is also developing the capability to easily store and write standard model metadata. Together, the distribution portal and framework will enable modelers to tie datasets to model information and perform the controlled experimentation necessary to validate and improve complex, multi-component Earth system simulations.

Events and Format

The main session on the morning of May 28th will include talks on ESMF development and applications. A detailed agenda and schedule is at http://www.esmf.ucar.edu/meetings/0805_community/agenda.shtml. The afternoon of the 28th, the full day of the 29th, and the morning of the 30th will be a coding workshop, where users can work one-on-one with ESMF developers. These sessions will be organized along two tracks:

New users who wish to learn how to build ESMF, adapt their code, and set up coupled systems.
More experienced users who wish to convert from ESMF 2 series releases to the new ESMF 3 series releases.

Attendees should plan to bring their laptops. We will have a server at the meeting that people can log into. Showing up in between AGU sessions is fine.

Morning sessions will run from 9:00am to 12:00pm. Afternoon sessions will run from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. A reception will be held the evening of May 28th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, with light refreshments.

Note that it is not necessary to register for AGU sessions to attend the ESMF meeting.

Logistics and Accommodations

AGU has selected several conference hotels. For questions on travel please contact Jennifer Williamson.