ESM-Tools is a software product developed and maintained at AWI as part of the ESM project. The aim of the software is to unify model infrastructure, giving a common framework for downloading, compiling, running and organizing coupled or standalone models.
This month ESM-Tools development reached a new milestone: version 4.2. In this release the ESM-Tools Core Development Team had focused on increasing the code stability, cleaning up the different packages (to speed up future developments), and easing the user experience. Additionally, ESM-Tools 4.2 supports new models and coupled setups.
It might be a minor release, but version 4.2 includes important changes that will allow developers to implement new components and setups faster and will ease the user-experience. We could have postponed these functionalities until release 5.0 (due in October), but why should we make you wait to use the following exciting features?
- Refactorization of the packages: The time had come to do a cleanup of the packages and to increase the clarity of the ESM-Tools configuration files. Before, the information about a component was split in at least two files, the old setups2models.yaml installation file, and a file containing specific configuration for the running of the component. Now things have become much clearer: all the configuration definitions required to install and run a component/setup are in the same file!
- Component specific environments: Another tidy-up feature that allows compiling and runtime environments modifications to be specified in the component configuration files. This will prevent the machine files from growing unnecessarily, avoiding environment conflicts among the components, even when these components are part of the same coupled setup! Check this link for more details.
- Bug fixes: We keep working hard on fixing bugs concerning ECHAM and other components. Issues in GitHub are always under our scope, so if you find a bug don't hesitate to report an issue here! We will address it ASAP.
- Documentation: We keep expanding the user manual and filling the gaps. Check the progresses here and feel free to rise issues on GitHub for suggestions.
Apart from new functionality, we extended the support for configurations for the following models and setups:
- FOCI: ECHAM-6.305p2 coupled to NEMO 3.6, developed by Sebastian Wahl (GEOMAR)
- VILMA: versions 1d and 3d
- ICON: compilation
- OpenIFS: lastest version (OpenIFS-43r3) supported, developed by Sebastian Wahl and Joakim Kjellsson (GEOMAR)
- AWIESM: ECHAM-6.3.05p2 with concurrent radiation and dynamic vegetation coupled to FESOM-2.0 and PISM-1.2, developed by Paul Gierz
- FESOM-REcoM-1.4: FESOM-1.4 coupled to the biogeochemistry model REcoM
We are also very glad to announce that version 5.0 will be released on October 2020. This will include:
- New components
- The very requested cleanup of experiment directory functionality
- Expanded documentation
- And some more exciting stuff
Recent developments of the ESM-Tools and the ESM coupling interface (esm-interface) have been presented at the "5th Workshop on Coupling Technologies for Earth System Models (CW2020)" by Deniz Ural and Nadine Wieters. The presentation can be viewed at the IS-ENES3 public YouTube channel. Go to the IS-ENES3 YouTube channel.
See you in release 5.0!
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