Abstract

We will present results from high-resolution AMIP simulations using CAM -SE: The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), running with the Spectral finite Element dynamical core from NCAR ’s High-Order Method Modeling Environment. CAM -SE is now supported within the Community Earth System Model. It uses fully unstructured conforming quadrilateral grids, and thus supports global high resolution through quasi-uniform grids and localized regions of high resolution with unstructured grids. For global 1/4 and 1/8 degree resolutions, CAM -SE runs efficiently on hundreds of thousands of processors on modern Cray and IBM supercomputers and obtains excellent simulation throughput. For variable resolution grids, our simulations benefit from a new mixed-formulation tensor-based hyper-viscosity operator. The mixed-formulation allows for efficient implementation in finite element methods, and a tensor form is used to provide the correct scale-aware dissipation, especially in the distorted elements which appear in resolution transition regions.