ESMF (Earth System Modeling Framework) is a program for building high-performance, flexible software infrastructure to increase ease of use, performance portability, interoperability, and reuse in climate, numerical weather prediction, data assimilation, The ESMF defines an architecture for composing complex, coupled modeling systems and includes data structures and utilities for developing individual models.
The basic idea behind ESMF is that complicated applications should be broken up into smaller pieces, or components. A component is a unit of software composition that has a coherent function, and a standard calling interface and behavior. Components can be assembled to create multiple applications, and different implementations of a component may be available. In ESMF, a component may be a physical domain, or a function such as a coupler or I/O system.
ESMF also includes toolkits for building components and applications, such as regridding software, calendar management, logging and error handling, and parallel communications.
The figure below shows ESMF components in practice. It is a diagram of the structure of the NASA GEOS-5 Atmospheric General Circulation Model, built from the ground up using ESMF. Each of the boxes is an ESMF component, including the couplers. The hierarchical tree of components can be "snipped" at different levels so that the whole physics package could be replaced, or a single parameterization. Each component is potentially "swappable."
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Here are some key features of "Earth System Modeling Framework":
· Full Fortran 90 interface, partial C/C++ interface
· Fortran 90 Reference Manual and User's Guide
· Runs on most high performance parallel computing platforms, including IBM, many Linux variants, Cray, Compaq, more (see here for the full list)
· Supports MPI, OpenMP and hybrid user codes
· 2500+ tests bundled with source distribution
· Free user support
· Active user community
Superstructure for coupling Earth system components:
· Component, State and Coupler software that wraps user code with minimal overhead
· Simple drivers that users can modify
· Sequential or concurrent execution of components
· Single executable capability
· Limited multiple executable capability
Infrastructure for building Earth system components:
· Time Manager that includes Gregorian, 360 day, no-leap, Julian, and other calendars, as well as a broad range of time functions
· Data structures for storage and manipulation of Arrays, Fields, and Bundles of Fields on the same grid.
· Parallel data communications and regridding software
· Message logging tools
· Resource file manager
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· This version modifies the code to enable backward compatibility and adds support for the PGI 11.x compiler version on Linux/PC and the Cray XT platform.
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