Appendix D
Questionnaire Sent to Small Modeling Centers
I. General information
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Name of Institution:
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Name of Research Group (if applicable):
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Name and contact details of person completing this survey:
Name
Position
Address
Phone
Fax
e-mail
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Please indicate the primary funding sources for your modeling efforts and an approximate percent breakdown where there is more than one source.
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How would you describe the purpose(s) of your modeling efforts?
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What percentage of your modeling activities are devoted to operational versus research purposes?
II. Interaction with major modeling centers
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Please describe groups with which you have significant collaboration and briefly describe the nature of this collaboration.
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If you currently have extensive collaboration with other groups, what are the main reasons for this collaboration?
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Do you feel that your modeling effort would be aided by altering the organization of U.S. climate modeling resources? If so, what changes would you recommend be made?
III. Current U.S. modeling capabilities
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Please provide your opinion on current U.S. climate and weather modeling capabilities relative to overseas efforts. Please describe where differences in capabilities exist and what you feel are the causes for these differences.
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If you stated that U.S. climate and weather modeling capabilities are behind those of other countries, do you have any suggestions to remedy this deficiency?
IV. Computational resources (please answer to the best of your knowledge):
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If you operate your own computing facilities for use in your modeling efforts, what are the manufacturers and models of these computer systems?
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What was the year of installation or of the last major upgrade to each of these systems?
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How many processors are currently operating on each of these systems?
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What is the estimate of sustained system performance (Gflops) of each of these systems?
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What is the central memory (GB) and secondary disc storage for each system (TB)?
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How many CPU hours do you currently use per month? What is the cost of this time?
V. Future requirements
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Please list any future upgrades that are planned to your current systems.
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What additional upgrades would be incorporated if funds were available?
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Does modeling capacity limit your current activities? Could you make use of additional capacity for additional activities?
VI. Models
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What type of climate and/or weather models are run at your institution?
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Are model results produced by your facility made available to the wider scientific community? If so, are any restrictions placed on the models or data?
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Do you use models or outputs from other facilities? If so, are any restrictions placed on the models or data?
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How many different models do you run? Which are the most computer intensive?
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Please provide a brief description of these models including the following:
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minimum grid size that can be used
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maximum number of vertical levels that can be used
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atmospheric constituents that are used to force the model including aerosols
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modules that are available to model earth systems (e.g. land surface vegetation, atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemistry (both land and ocean), terrestrial hydrology (both surface and soil hydrology), sea ice, etc.)
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treatment of boundaries in the model (e.g. swamp ocean, specifies SSTs etc.)
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the minimum time-step that can be used in the model
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In an attempt to gauge the maximum achievable performance (Rpeak) of your systems in a manner that is comparable to other systems reported in this survey we would appreciate the following information. What is the approximate run time needed to simulate 15 model years on your fastest computer using your highest resolution model? Assume that it is dedicated to the task and that optimal multi-tasking (e.g., running as many separate simulations as can be accommodated by all of the machine's processors and dividing the final wallclock time by the number of simulations) is utilized? Please be specific as to the parameters used during this test.
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How “portable” is your code without experiencing major performance loss?
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What future improvements are being planned for this model?
VII. Human resources
Within this section, we would like to develop a profile of the computational and human resources that are presently directed toward modeling in the U.S.
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What is the current number of staff that are directly involved with the following and their approximate annual cost:
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Science/Research
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Hardware maintenance
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Software tool development
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Model code development
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Model simulation interpretation
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Are the number of staff supporting your efforts sufficient? If not, please describe where improvements are needed.
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When staffing positions in the categories listed above, what are the main difficulties, if any, involved (i.e. level of training required, salary requirements).
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Please describe any future changes in staffing that are planned.
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Do you feel that future modeling efforts will be hindered by the availability of quality graduate students? If so, what steps would you recommend to remedy this problem?
VIII. Miscellaneous
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Do you feel that your efforts are being limited by access to high-end computing resources? By access to model output from large modeling centers? By availability of diagnostic tools? By any other factors?
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Do you have any other comments that you feel this panel should be aware of?
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This survey was distributed to the groups listed below. If there is a group that has not been included in this list that you feel should be considered as part of our survey, please provide us with the name and address of this institution and the person to whom this survey should be directed.