CAM-SE: A scalable spectral element dynamical core for the Community Atmosphere Model

The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) version 5 includes a spectral element dynamical core option from NCAR's High-Order Method Modeling Environment. It is a continuous Galerkin spectral finite element method designed for fully unstructured quadrilateral meshes. The current configurations in CAM are based on the cubedsphere grid. The main motivation for including a spectral element dynamical core is to improve the scalability of CAM by allowing quasi-uniform grids for the sphere that do not require polar filters. In addition, the approach provides other state-of-the-art capabilities such as improved conservation properties. Spectral elements are used for the horizontal discretization, while most other aspects of the dynamical core are a hybrid of well tested techniques from CAM?s finite volume and global spectral dynamical core options. Here we first give a overview of the spectral element dynamical core as used in CAM. We then give scalability and performance results from CAM running with three different dynamical core options within the Community Earth System Model, using a pre-industrial time-slice configuration. We focus on high resolution simulations, using 1/4 degree, 1/8 degree, and T341 spectral truncation horizontal grids.

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Copyright 2012 Author(s). Published under license by SAGE.


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Author Dennis, John M.
Edwards, J.
Evans, K.
Guba, O.
Lauritzen, Peter H.
Mirin, A.
St-Cyr, Amik
Taylor, M.
Worley, P.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2012-02-27T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-15T21:37:10.110734
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:18153
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Dennis, John M., Edwards, J., Evans, K., Guba, O., Lauritzen, Peter H., Mirin, A., St-Cyr, Amik, Taylor, M., Worley, P.. (2012). CAM-SE: A scalable spectral element dynamical core for the Community Atmosphere Model. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7qj7jvn. Accessed 05 August 2025.

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