ACCESS-ESM with payu

Quickstart Guide

Get payu:

module use /g/data/hh5/public/modules
module load conda/analysis3-unstable

Create a directory in which to keep the model configurations:

mkdir -p ~/access-esm
cd ~/access-esm
git clone https://github.com/coecms/access-esm
cd access-esm

Then check out the branch of the experiment you want to run (or base your run on), for example for pre-industrial, chose:

git checkout pre-industrial

Other branches include:

• historical
• ssp585
• last-interglacial
• last-millenium
• 82ka

We strongly recommend to switch to a new branch for the running of the model:

git checkout -b runs

Run the model:

payu run

Check the output:

ls archive/

The default configuration is a 1 year per model run. To run the model for, say, 25 years:

payu run -n 25

Note: We have noticed that some modules interfere with the git commands, for example matlab/R2018a. If you are running into issues during the installation, it might be a good idea to module purge first before starting again.

Understanding payu

payu was designed to help users of the NCI system run climate models. It was initially created for MOM, but has been adapted for other models, including coupled ones.

The aim of payu is to make it easy and intuitive to configure and run the models.

payu knows certain models and how to run them. Adding more models needs additions to the payu sources. This will not be part of this document.

Terms

To understand payu, it helps to distinguish certain terms:

• The laboratory is a directory where all parts of the model are kept. It is typically in the user's short directory, usually at /scratch/$PROJECT/$USER/<MODEL>
• The Control Directory is the directory where the model configuration is kept and from where the model is run.
• The work directory is where the model will actually be run. It is typically a subdirectory of the Laboratory. Submodels will have their own subdirectories in the work directory, named after their name in the master configuration file. It is ephemeral, that means payu will clean it up after the run.
• The archive directory is where payu puts all output files after each run.

The work and archive directories will be automatically created by payu.

The master configuration file

In the Control Directory, the file config.yaml is the master control file. Examples of what is configured in this file are:

• The actual model to run.
• Where to find the model binaries and configurations
• What resources to request from the scheduling system (PBS)
• Links to the laboratory
• Start date and run length per submission pf the model

The model configuration files are typically in subdirectories of the Control Directory, the location of which is referenced in the master control file. Since the models itself do need different ways to set up the model, the contents of these subdirectories will differ between different models.

Understanding ACCESS-ESM

ACCESS (Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator) is a Coupled Climate Model.

The ESM 1.5 subversion of ACCESS specifically contains these models:

Component	Model	Version
Atmosphere	UM-HG3	7.3
Ocean	MOM	5
Sea Ice	CICE	4.1
Land	CABLE	2.2.4
Coupler	OASIS-MCT	3.5

Pre-compiled executables for these models are available on raijin at /short/public/access-esm/payu/bin/csiro/.

Setting up ACCESS-ESM with payu

The pre-conditions

On gadi, first make sure that you have access to our modules. This can most easily been done by adding the line

module use /g/data/hh5/public/modules

to your ~/.profile, then logging back in. Then all you have to do is

module load conda/analysis3-unstable

to load the payu module. Please check again after 7/2019 to see whether it has been made part of the stable conda module.

as payu will use git to keep track of all configuration changes automatically.

Setting up the control directory

Create a directory in your home directory to keep all the Control Directories you might want.

mkdir ~/ACCESS-ESM
cd ~/ACCESS-ESM

Then clone the most recent version of the ACCESS-ESM control directory:

git clone https://github.com/coecms/esm-pre-industrial
cd esm-pre-industrial

Every time you run the model, payu will check whether anything has changed, including the configuration files, the ancillary files, and executables. If anything has changed, it will create a new commit in the git repository to keep track of the changes.

This can quickly create a lot new commits with such helpful names 'Run 1', 'Run 2', and so forth.

For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you switch to a branch specifically for you running the experiment.

You can do this by running

git checkout -b runs

Setting up the Master Configuration file.

Open the config.yaml file with your preferred text editor.

Let's have a closer look at the parts:

jobname: pre-industrial
queue: normal
walltime: 20:00:00

These are settings for the PBS system. Name, walltime and queue to use.

# note: if laboratory is relative path, it is relative to /short/$PROJECT/$USER
laboratory: access-esm

The location of the laboratory. At this point, payu can not expand shell environment variables (it's in our TO-DO), so as a work-around, if you use relative paths, it will be relative to your default short directory.

In this default configuration, it will be in /scratch/$PROJECT/$USER/access-esm. But you can also hard-code the full path, if you want it somewhere different.

model: access

The main model. This mainly tells payu which driver to use. payu knows that access is a coupled model, so it will look for separate configurations of the submodels, which is the next item of the configuration file:

submodels:
    - name: atmosphere
      model: um
      ncpus: 192
      exe: /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/bin/coe/um7.3x
      input:
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/atmosphere
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/start_dump

    - name: ocean
      model: mom
      ncpus: 180
      exe: /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/bin/coe/mom5xx
      input:
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/ocean/common
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/ocean/pre-industrial

    - name: ice
      model: cice
      ncpus: 12
      exe: /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/bin/coe/cicexx
      input:
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/ice

    - name: coupler
      model: oasis
      ncpus: 0
      input:
        - /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/input/pre-industrial/coupler

This is probably the meatiest part of the configuration, so let's look at it in more detail.

Each submodel has

• a name
• the model to know which driver to use
• the number of CPUs that this model should receive (ncpus)
• the location of the executable to use (exe)
• one or more locations for the input files.

The name is more than a useful reminder of what the model is. payu expects this submodel's configuration files in a subdirectory with that name.

collate:
   exe: /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/bin/mppnccombine
   restart: true
   mem: 4GB

Collation refers joining together of ocean diagnostics that are output at model runtime in separate, tiled, files. In a process using minimal resources the output files are joined back together. The restart files are typically also tiled in the same way. Here the restart: true option means the restart files from the previous run are also collated. This saves space and cuts down the number of files which makes more efficient use of storage and better for archiving in the future.

restart: /g/data/access/payu/access-esm/restart/pre-industrial

This is the location of the warm restart files. payu will use the restart files in there for the initial run.

calendar:
    start:
        year: 101
        month: 1
        days: 1

    runtime:
        years: 1
        months: 0
        days: 0

Here is the start date, and the runtime per run. The total time you want to model is runtime * number of runs

runspersub: 5

This runspersub feature is a nifty tool to allow you to bundle several runs into a single submission for the PBS queue.

Let's have an example: Say you told payu to make 7 runs with the above setting. Each run would have a runtime of 1 year. So in the first submission it would run the model 5 times, to model years 101 through 105 respectively.

Then it would automatically resubmit another pbs job to model years 106 and 107, and then end.

Setting up the Atmosphere Submodel

The name in config.yaml for the atmosphere submodel is "atmosphere", so the configuration of the UM will be in the atmosphere subdirectory.

ls atmosphere/
CNTLALL   SIZES      __pycache__  ftxx       ihist          prefix.CNTLATM
CONTCNTL  STASHC     cable.nml    ftxx.new   input_atm.nml  prefix.CNTLGEN
INITHIS   UAFILES_A  errflag      ftxx.vars  namelists      prefix.PRESM_A
PPCNTL    UAFLDS_A   exstat       hnlist     parexe         um_env.py

There are many configuration files, but I want to note the um_env.py. This file is used to set environment variables for the UM. The UM driver of payu will look for this file and add these definitions to the environment when it runs the model.

Setting up the Ocean Submodel

The name in config.yaml for the ocean submodel is "ocean", so the configuration of MOM will be in the ocean subdirectory.

ls ocean
data_table  diag_table  field_table  input.nml

Setting up the Ice Submodel

The name in config.yaml for the ice submodel is "ice", so the configuration of CICE will be in the ice subdirectory.

ls ice/
cice_in.nml  input_ice.nml

Running the Model

If you have set up the modules system to use the /g/data3/hh5/public/modules folder, a simple module load conda/analysis3-unstable should give you access to the payu system.

From the control directory, type

payu setup

This will prepare a the model run based on the configuration of the experiment. It will setup work and archive directories and link to them from within the configuration directory. You don't have to do that, as the run command also sets it up, but it helps to check for errors.

payu sweep

This command removes the work directory again, but leaves the archive.

Finally,

payu run

will submit a single run to the queue. It will start from the beginning (as indicated by the start section in the config.yaml) if it has not run before.

To automatically submit several runs (and to take advantage of the runspersub directive), you use the -n option:

payu run -n 7

Finding the Output

The output is automatically copied to the archive/outputXXX directories.