In Situ Eddy Analysis in a High-Resolution Ocean Climate Model

Area of Science:

• Oceanography
• Climate Science
• Computational Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Ocean eddies are vital for heat, salt, and nutrient transport, influencing climate and biological productivity.
• Studying ocean eddies in high-resolution global ocean-climate models generates massive datasets, hindering traditional analysis.
• Existing postprocessing workflows face storage and I/O limitations for large-scale eddy analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an efficient in situ workflow for analyzing ocean eddies.
• To enable quantitative and qualitative eddy analysis in high-resolution ocean climate models.
• To address the data analysis bottleneck in climate modeling.

Main Methods:

• Developed and implemented an in situ data analysis workflow.
• Collaborated with ocean model researchers during the model development process.
• Utilized the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean) model.

Main Results:

• The in situ workflow enables eddy analysis at high spatial and temporal resolutions.
• The workflow effectively bypasses storage and I/O constraints of postprocessing methods.
• The developed workflow demonstrates scalability to ten-thousand processing elements.

Conclusions:

• An in situ workflow is essential for feasible and timely eddy analysis in high-resolution ocean climate models.
• This approach overcomes limitations of traditional postprocessing, facilitating crucial climate research.
• The developed workflow supports large-scale simulations and advances our understanding of ocean dynamics.