Articles | Volume 12, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3135-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3135-2019
Development and technical paper
 | 
24 Jul 2019
Development and technical paper |  | 24 Jul 2019

How to use mixed precision in ocean models: exploring a potential reduction of numerical precision in NEMO 4.0 and ROMS 3.6

Oriol Tintó Prims, Mario C. Acosta, Andrew M. Moore, Miguel Castrillo, Kim Serradell, Ana Cortés, and Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes

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Cited articles

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Short summary
Mixed-precision approaches can provide substantial speed-ups for both computing- and memory-bound codes, requiring little effort. A novel method to enable modern and legacy codes to benefit from a reduction of precision without sacrificing accuracy is presented. Using a precision emulator and a divide-and-conquer algorithm it identifies the parts that cannot handle reduced precision and the ones that can. The method has been proved using two ocean models, NEMO and ROMS, with promising results.
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