gfdl's home page > about us > FY02 milestones > FMS infrastructure
Make a public release of the FMS infrastructure including working samples
GFDL 2002 second quarter milestone
Purpose:
The Flexible Modeling System (FMS) is designed to offer a centralized infrastructure for the creation of numerical models by earth system scientists, ease the transition to new computer architectures, and foster both intramural and extramural collaborations. The goal is a system within which specific models can be easily developed to optimally address various scientific questions, as opposed to the construction of a single monolithic model. The system consists both of infrastructure tools that can be shared across models and the specific component models that share this infrastructure. The first step toward realizing these goals is to release the FMS infrastructure to the research community for their use and review.
Efforts:
A concentrated effort to prepare the FMS infrastructure for public release took place over the last six months. This effort involved an enormous commitment from GFDL's scientists and support staff to prepare physically reasonable test cases and to ensure the released code met all design specifications.
Customers:
FMS provides a software framework for supporting the efficient development, construction, execution, and scientific interpretation of atmospheric, oceanic and climate system models. The principal customers are scientists who are interested in building and using coupled earth system models. FMS allows them to focus on their scientific area of interest while being largely insulated from machine-specific details.
Significance:
The release of the FMS infrastructure provides the rules and tools with which Earth System modelers can begin constructing advanced and efficient coupled climate and weather models.
Success:
The Galway version of the FMS infrastructure was released to the research community on March 28, 2002. It is hosted at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fms/, a public website that hosts thousands of other software projects. In addition to the infrastructure itself, there are three example codes provided in this release.
They are:
- a gridpoint dynamical core
- a spectral dynamicalcore
- simple coupled model
The gridpoint and spectral cores are included to demonstrate the ability for different atmospheric models to use the FMS infrastructure. The coupled model example uses a 2-layer spectral dynamical core, a sea-ice model, a mixed-layer ocean, and a simple land model; it is included to demonstrate the use of the FMS infrastructure in a fully coupled model, albeit one comprised of simple component models.
Next Steps:
The infrastructure will be enhanced, and updates will be published approximately every three months. Updates will also be provided as actual component models, such as the latest Modular Ocean Model ( MOM4 ), are publicly released.