Articles | Volume 18, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-529-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-529-2025
Development and technical paper
 | 
30 Jan 2025
Development and technical paper |  | 30 Jan 2025

Exploring a high-level programming model for the NWP domain using ECMWF microphysics schemes

Stefano Ubbiali, Christian Kühnlein, Christoph Schär, Linda Schlemmer, Thomas C. Schulthess, Michael Staneker, and Heini Wernli

Related authors

Insights from hailstorm track analysis in European climate change simulations
Killian P. Brennan, Iris Thurnherr, Michael Sprenger, and Heini Wernli
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-918,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-918, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS).
Short summary
Frequency anomalies and characteristics of extratropical cyclones during extremely wet, dry, windy, and calm seasons in the extratropics
Hanin Binder and Heini Wernli
Weather Clim. Dynam., 6, 151–170, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-6-151-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-6-151-2025, 2025
Short summary
Multi-year simulations at kilometre scale with the Integrated Forecasting System coupled to FESOM2.5 and NEMOv3.4
Thomas Rackow, Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, Tobias Becker, Sebastian Milinski, Irina Sandu, Razvan Aguridan, Peter Bechtold, Sebastian Beyer, Jean Bidlot, Souhail Boussetta, Willem Deconinck, Michail Diamantakis, Peter Dueben, Emanuel Dutra, Richard Forbes, Rohit Ghosh, Helge F. Goessling, Ioan Hadade, Jan Hegewald, Thomas Jung, Sarah Keeley, Lukas Kluft, Nikolay Koldunov, Aleksei Koldunov, Tobias Kölling, Josh Kousal, Christian Kühnlein, Pedro Maciel, Kristian Mogensen, Tiago Quintino, Inna Polichtchouk, Balthasar Reuter, Domokos Sármány, Patrick Scholz, Dmitry Sidorenko, Jan Streffing, Birgit Sützl, Daisuke Takasuka, Steffen Tietsche, Mirco Valentini, Benoît Vannière, Nils Wedi, Lorenzo Zampieri, and Florian Ziemen
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 33–69, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-33-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-33-2025, 2025
Short summary
Impact of climate change on snow avalanche activity in the Swiss Alps
Stephanie Mayer, Martin Hendrick, Adrien Michel, Bettina Richter, Jürg Schweizer, Heini Wernli, and Alec van Herwijnen
The Cryosphere, 18, 5495–5517, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5495-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5495-2024, 2024
Short summary
Revealing the dynamics of a local Alpine windstorm using large-eddy simulations
Nicolai Krieger, Heini Wernli, Michael Sprenger, and Christian Kühnlein
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3461,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3461, 2024
Short summary

Related subject area

Atmospheric sciences
A Bayesian method for predicting background radiation at environmental monitoring stations in local-scale networks
Jens Peter Karolus Wenceslaus Frankemölle, Johan Camps, Pieter De Meutter, and Johan Meyers
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1989–2003, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1989-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1989-2025, 2025
Short summary
Inclusion of the ECMWF ecRad radiation scheme (v1.5.0) in the MAR (v3.14), regional evaluation for Belgium, and assessment of surface shortwave spectral fluxes at Uccle
Jean-François Grailet, Robin J. Hogan, Nicolas Ghilain, David Bolsée, Xavier Fettweis, and Marilaure Grégoire
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1965–1988, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1965-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1965-2025, 2025
Short summary
Development of a fast radiative transfer model for ground-based microwave radiometers (ARMS-gb v1.0): validation and comparison to RTTOV-gb
Yi-Ning Shi, Jun Yang, Wei Han, Lujie Han, Jiajia Mao, Wanlin Kan, and Fuzhong Weng
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1947–1964, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1947-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1947-2025, 2025
Short summary
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) High-Resolution Global Forecast Model version 1: an attempt to resolve monsoon prediction deadlock
R. Phani Murali Krishna, Siddharth Kumar, A. Gopinathan Prajeesh, Peter Bechtold, Nils Wedi, Kumar Roy, Malay Ganai, B. Revanth Reddy, Snehlata Tirkey, Tanmoy Goswami, Radhika Kanase, Sahadat Sarkar, Medha Deshpande, and Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1879–1894, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1879-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1879-2025, 2025
Short summary
Cell-tracking-based framework for assessing nowcasting model skill in reproducing growth and decay of convective rainfall
Jenna Ritvanen, Seppo Pulkkinen, Dmitri Moisseev, and Daniele Nerini
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1851–1878, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1851-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1851-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Adams, S. V., Ford, R. W., Hambley, M., Hobson, J., Kavčič, I., Maynard, C. M., Melvin, T., Müller, E. H., Mullerworth, S., Porter, A. R., Rezny, M., Shipway, B. J., and Wong, R.: LFRic: Meeting the challenges of scalability and performance portability in Weather and Climate models, J. Parallel Distr. Com., 132, 383–396, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2019.02.007, 2019. a
Afanasyev, A., Bianco, M., Mosimann, L., Osuna, C., Thaler, F., Vogt, H., Fuhrer, O., VandeVondele, J., and Schulthess, T. C.: GridTools: A framework for portable weather and climate applications, SoftwareX, 15, 100707, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2021.100707, 2021. a, b
Baldauf, M., Seifert, A., Förstner, J., Majewski, D., Raschendorfer, M., and Reinhardt, T.: Operational convective-scale numerical weather prediction with the COSMO model: Description and sensitivities, Mon. Weather Rev., 139, 3887–3905, https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-10-05013.1, 2011. a
Bauer, P., Quintino, T., Wedi, N. P., Bonanni, A., Chrust, M., Deconinck, W., Diamantakis, M., Dueben, P. D., English, S., Flemming, J., Gillies, P., Hadade, I., Hawkes, J., Hawkins, M., Iffrig, O., Kühnlein, C., Lange, M., Lean, P., Maciel, P., Marsden, O., Müller, A., Saarinen, S., Sarmany, D., Sleigh, M., Smart, S., Smolarkiewicz, P. K., Thiemert, D., Tumolo, G., Weihrauch, C., and Zanna, C.: The ECMWF scalability programme: Progress and plans, ECMWF Technical Memo No. 857, https://doi.org/10.21957/gdit22ulm, 2020. a, b
Bauer, P., Dueben, P. D., Hoefler, T., Quintino, T., Schulthess, T. C., and Wedi, N. P.: The digital revolution of Earth-system science, Nature Comput. Sci., 1, 104–113, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-021-00023-0, 2021. a
Download
Short summary
We explore a high-level programming model for porting numerical weather prediction (NWP) model codes to graphics processing units (GPUs). We present a Python rewrite with the domain-specific library GT4Py (GridTools for Python) of two renowned cloud microphysics schemes and the associated tangent-linear and adjoint algorithms. We find excellent portability, competitive GPU performance, robust execution on diverse computing architectures, and enhanced code maintainability and user productivity.
Share