Previous studies have shown that atmospheric models with a spectral element grid can benefit from putting physics calculations on a relatively coarse finite volume grid. Here we demonstrate an alternative high-order, element-based mapping approach used to implement a quasi-equal-area, finite volume physics grid in E3SM. Unlike similar methods, the new method in E3SM requires topology data purely local to each spectral element, which trivially allows for regional mesh refinement. Simulations with physics grids defined by 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 4 × 4 divisions of each element are shown to verify that the alternative physics grid does not qualitatively alter the model solution. The model performance is substantially affected by the reduction of physics columns when using the 2 × 2 grid, which can increase the throughput of physics calculations by roughly 60%–120% depending on whether the computational resources are configured to maximize throughput or efficiency. A pair of regionally refined cases are also shown to highlight the refinement capability.

中文翻译：

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分离物理和动力学网格以提高光谱元素地球系统模型的计算效率

先前的研究表明，具有光谱元素网格的大气模型可以受益于将物理计算放在相对粗糙的有限体积网格上。在这里，我们展示了一种替代的高阶、基于元素的映射方法，用于在 E3SM 中实现准等面积、有限体积物理网格。与类似方法不同，E3SM 中的新方法需要对每个光谱元素完全本地化的拓扑数据，这很容易实现区域网格细化。显示了由每个元素的 2 × 2、3 × 3 和 4 × 4 划分定义的物理网格的模拟，以验证替代物理网格不会定性地改变模型解决方案。当使用 2 × 2 网格时，模型性能受到物理列减少的显着影响，这可以将物理计算的吞吐量提高大约 60%–120%，具体取决于计算资源是否配置为最大化吞吐量或效率。还展示了一对区域细化的案例，以突出细化能力。