DOE OSTI · 3366093
The ocean model for E3SM global applications: Omega version 0.1.0 – a new high-performance computing code for exascale architectures
Abstract
This paper introduces Omega, the Ocean Model for E3SM Global Applications. Omega is a new ocean model designed to run efficiently on high performance computing (HPC) platforms, including exascale heterogeneous architectures with accelerators, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Omega is written in C and uses the Kokkos performance portability library. These were chosen because they are well-supported and will help future-proof Omega for upcoming HPC architectures. Omega will eventually replace the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean) in the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). Omega runs on unstructured horizontal meshes with variable-resolution capability and implements the same horizontal discretization as MPAS-Ocean. This work documents the design and performance of Omega Version 0.1.0 (Omega-V0), which solves the shallow water equations with passive tracers and is the first step towards the full primitive equation ocean model. On Central Processing Units (CPUs), Omega-V0 is 1.4 times faster than MPAS-Ocean with the same configuration. Omega-V0 is more efficient on GPUs than CPUs on a per-watt basis – by a factor of 5.3 on Frontier and 3.6 on Aurora, two of the world's fastest exascale computers.
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Petersen, Mark Roger [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000171707511), Asay-Davis, Xylar Storn [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:000000021990892X), Barthel, Alice Marie [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000224818646), Begeman, Carolyn Branecky [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000198281741), Bishnu, Siddhartha [University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)] (ORCID:0000000242279738), Brus, Steven Richard [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000203149201), Jones, Philip Wiley [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000271623411), Kang, Hyun-Gyu [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:000000016073918X), Kim, Youngsung [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:000000027217411X), Mametjanov, Azamat [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000173164231), O'Neill, Brian John [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000241927422), Overfelt, James R. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Ringel, Kieran Kelly [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0009000498104920), Smith, Katherine Margaret [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000216037727), Sreepathi, Sarat [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000249789423), Van Roekel, Luke P. [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000314185686), Waruszewski, Maciej [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0009000189184314). 2026-05-04. The ocean model for E3SM global applications: Omega version 0.1.0 – a new high-performance computing code for exascale architectures. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-3569-2026
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