A Generic Coupler for Earth System Models

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses the generic coupling features of earth system models and introduces a data registration service to enable a generic coupler for the cases where only regridding is involved. One of the distinct features of earth system models is that the models need to exchange data, typically along the model interface and on different grids, to obtain an accurate prediction. These earth system models typically run on parallel computers, at least in the production mode. Therefore, various parallel software tools have been developed to support coupling operations, such as the UCLA distributed data broker (DDB), the NASA Goddard earth modeling system (GEMS), the GFDL flexible model system (FMS), and the NCAR flux coupler. Although these tools are used in production, they are typically used only within their own organizations. It still remains challenging to couple models across organizations. The earth system modeling framework (ESMF) is funded by NASA's Earth-Sun System Technology Office/Computational Technologies Project to facilitate coupling earth system models across organizations.