Development of a Simple Coupler (Scup) for Earth System Modeling

Abstract

We have developed a general-purpose simple coupler (Scup) that can be used for earth system modeling. Scup allows flexible coupling among component models, for example, atmosphere and ocean general circulation models and chemical transport models. Although Scup has provided functions that are required for the efficient development of an earth system model at the Meteorological Research Institute, its fundamental design should also be applicable to other earth system models. Processes of the component models communicate with each other directly by calling the Scup library, which is necessary to efficiently exchange large amounts of grid data among the processes of the component models. Scup supports grid transformation for three-dimensional data and that for two-dimensional data with accurate local and global conservation, necessary features for coupling component models with different coordinates or grids.Simplicity and ease of use are among Scup's strong points. All of the source code is written in Fortran and can be compiled on various platforms with a Fortran 95 compiler and a Message Passing Interface library, so it has good portability.

Review of the global models used within phase 1 of the Chemistry–Climate Model Initiative (CCMI)

“…The vertical resolution of MRI-ESM1r1 (L80) is improved compared to MRI-ESM1 (L48). The SCUP coupler (Yoshimura and Yukimoto, 2008) is used to couple the atmosphere, ocean, aerosol, and (gas-phase) chemistry modules, which make up MRIESM1r1. The chemistry module is MRI-CCM2 (Deushi and Shibata, 2011), which is an updated version of MRI-CCM1 O.…”

A New Global Climate Model of the Meteorological Research Institute: MRI-CGCM3 —Model Description and Basic Performance—

“…In MRI-CGCM3, atmospheric aerosols are calculated with the Model of Aerosol Species in the Global Atmosphere (MASINGAR) mk-2, which is coupled with the Scup coupler library (Yoshimura and Yukimoto 2008). This improved version of the MASINGAR aerosol model (Tanaka et al 2003) treats five aerosol species: non-sea-salt sulfate, BC, OC, sea-salt, and mineral dust.…”

“…Scup (Yoshimura and Yukimoto 2008) was developed at MRI as a simple general-purpose coupler for coupling component models for integration into an ESM. Each component model in MRI-CGCM3 (or MRI-ESM1) (atmospheric, ocean-ice, aerosol, and atmospheric chemistry models) uses Scup to exchange data with the other component models.…”

DIAL measurement of lower tropospheric ozone over Saga (33.24° N, 130.29° E), Japan, and comparison with a chemistry–climate model

“…The chemistry module is coupled with an MRI atmospheric general circulation model (MRI-AGCM3; Yukimoto et al, 2011) via a simple coupler (Yoshimura and Yukimoto, 2008). The chemistry module receives meteorological and radiation fields and surface conditions from MRI-AGCM3.…”