10.6 The Common Community Physics Package CCPP: Unifying physics across NOAA and NCAR models using a common software framework.
Heinzeller, Dom, NOAA ESRL – Global Systems Division (NOAA/ESRL/GSD) and University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CU/CIRES) and Developmental Testbed Center (DTC), Grant Firl, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and DTC, Ligia Bernardet, NOAA/ESRL/GSD and CU/CIRES and DTC, Laurie Carson, NCAR and DTC, Man Zhang, NOAA/ESRL/GSD and CU/CIRES and DTC, Steve Goldhaber, Cheryl Craig, Dave Gill, Michael Duda, and Francis Vitt, NCAR
Years of
independent development work have led to largely incompatible model components
among the different U.S. agencies. To facilitate the transition of innovations
from the research community to operations, the Global Model Test Bed (GMTB)
with staff at NOAA and NCAR has been tasked to develop a collection of physical
parameterizations and a software framework, called the Common Community Physics
Package (CCPP). Recently, an agreement was made between NOAA and NCAR to
jointly develop the CCPP framework as part of their Unified Forecasting System
(UFS) and System for Integrated Modeling Architecture (SIMA) programs. This
places the CCPP in the heart of several of the U.S. flagship models as a
single, standardized way to interface physics with models of the atmosphere
(and other compartments of the Earth system).
In this contribution, we will provide a brief overview of the concept of the
CCPP, present its technical design and the requirements for parameterizations
to be considered as CCPP-compliant, and describe the integration of CCPP with
the host model. We will touch upon the challenges in creating a flexible
modeling framework while maintaining high computational performance, and
demonstrate how the joint development has benefited and will continue to
benefit its users.