Articles | Volume 18, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3661-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3661-2025
Development and technical paper
 | 
20 Jun 2025
Development and technical paper |  | 20 Jun 2025

Reducing time and computing costs in EC-Earth: an automatic load-balancing approach for coupled Earth system models

Sergi Palomas, Mario C. Acosta, Gladys Utrera, and Etienne Tourigny

Related authors

The very-high-resolution configuration of the EC-Earth global model for HighResMIP
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Thomas Arsouze, Mario Acosta, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Miguel Castrillo, Eric Ferrer, Amanda Frigola, Daria Kuznetsova, Eneko Martin-Martinez, Pablo Ortega, and Sergi Palomas
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 461–482, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025, 2025
Short summary
The computational and energy cost of simulation and storage for climate science: lessons from CMIP6
Mario C. Acosta, Sergi Palomas, Stella V. Paronuzzi Ticco, Gladys Utrera, Joachim Biercamp, Pierre-Antoine Bretonniere, Reinhard Budich, Miguel Castrillo, Arnaud Caubel, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Italo Epicoco, Uwe Fladrich, Sylvie Joussaume, Alok Kumar Gupta, Bryan Lawrence, Philippe Le Sager, Grenville Lister, Marie-Pierre Moine, Jean-Christophe Rioual, Sophie Valcke, Niki Zadeh, and Venkatramani Balaji
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3081–3098, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3081-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3081-2024, 2024
Short summary

Related subject area

Climate and Earth system modeling
Advanced climate model evaluation with ESMValTool v2.11.0 using parallel, out-of-core, and distributed computing
Manuel Schlund, Bouwe Andela, Jörg Benke, Ruth Comer, Birgit Hassler, Emma Hogan, Peter Kalverla, Axel Lauer, Bill Little, Saskia Loosveldt Tomas, Francesco Nattino, Patrick Peglar, Valeriu Predoi, Stef Smeets, Stephen Worsley, Martin Yeo, and Klaus Zimmermann
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 4009–4021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4009-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4009-2025, 2025
Short summary
ICON-HAM-lite 1.0: simulating the Earth system with interactive aerosols at kilometer scales
Philipp Weiss, Ross Herbert, and Philip Stier
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3877–3894, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025, 2025
Short summary
Process-based modeling framework for sustainable irrigation management at the regional scale: integrating rice production, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions
Yan Bo, Hao Liang, Tao Li, and Feng Zhou
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3799–3817, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3799-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3799-2025, 2025
Short summary
Implementing deep soil and dynamic root uptake in Noah-MP (v4.5): impact on Amazon dry-season transpiration
Carolina A. Bieri, Francina Dominguez, Gonzalo Miguez-Macho, and Ying Fan
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3755–3779, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3755-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3755-2025, 2025
Short summary
FLAME 1.0: a novel approach for modelling burned area in the Brazilian biomes using the maximum entropy concept
Maria Lucia Ferreira Barbosa, Douglas I. Kelley, Chantelle A. Burton, Igor J. M. Ferreira, Renata Moura da Veiga, Anna Bradley, Paulo Guilherme Molin, and Liana O. Anderson
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3533–3557, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3533-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3533-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Abdulsalam, S., Zong, Z., Gu, Q., and Qiu, M.: Using the Greenup, Powerup, and Speedup metrics to evaluate software energy efficiency, in: 2015 Sixth International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference (IGSC), 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1109/IGCC.2015.7393699, 2015. a, b
Acosta, M. C., Palomas, S., Paronuzzi Ticco, S. V., Utrera, G., Biercamp, J., Bretonniere, P.-A., Budich, R., Castrillo, M., Caubel, A., Doblas-Reyes, F., Epicoco, I., Fladrich, U., Joussaume, S., Kumar Gupta, A., Lawrence, B., Le Sager, P., Lister, G., Moine, M.-P., Rioual, J.-C., Valcke, S., Zadeh, N., and Balaji, V.: The computational and energy cost of simulation and storage for climate science: lessons from CMIP6, Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3081–3098, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3081-2024, 2024a. a, b, c, d
Acosta, M. C., Palomas, S., and Tourigny, E.: Balancing EC-Earth3 Improving the Performance of EC-Earth CMIP6 Configurations by Minimizing the Coupling Cost, Earth Space Sci., 10, e2023EA002912, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EA002912, 2023b. a
Alexeev, Y., Mickelson, S., Leyffer, S., Jacob, R., and Craig, A.: The Heuristic Static Load-Balancing Algorithm Applied to the Community Earth System Model, in: 2014 IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops, 1581–1590, https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPSW.2014.177, 2014. a
Autosubmit documentation and user guide: Autosubmit, Autosubmit [code], https://autosubmit.readthedocs.io/en/master/, last access: 18 November 2024. a
Download
Short summary
We present an automatic tool that optimizes resource distribution in coupled climate models, enhancing speed and reducing computational costs without requiring expert knowledge. Users can set energy/time criteria or limit resource usage. Tested on various European Community Earth System Model (EC-Earth) configurations and high-performance computing (HPC) platforms, it achieved up to 34 % faster simulations with fewer resources.
Share