A Massively Parallel Dynamical Core for Continental- to Global-Scale River Transport

• Main Authors: J. W. Larson, A. P. Craig, J. B. Drake, D. J. Erickson, M. L. Branstetter, M. W. Ham
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Runoff and River Modelling; Climate Modelling; Software Architecture; Parallel Computing; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.518.320; http://mssanz.org.au/MODSIM07/papers/10_s61/AMassivelyParallel_s61_Larson_.pdf

The practise of climate modeling has evolved from study of individual subsystems to integrated coupled climate or earth system models. Coupled climate models comprise general circulation models (GCMs) for both the atmosphere and ocean, a land-surface model, and a sea-ice model. Rivers play an important role in the Earth’s hydrological cycle (Figure 1), and most climate system models now include continental-scale river transport models (RTMs) to complete the global water balance. The RTM takes as its input runoff calculated by the land-surface model, routes it through the river network and ultimately into the system’s ocean component. Many continental-to-global scale river transport models (RTM’s) exist, but none are currently