The first Jülich ESM Symposium took place from the 27th to the 29th of May and was attended by more than 40 scientists from 6 Helmholtz Centres. The meeting was an occasion to promote the exchange between the scientific users of the Helmholtz ESM partition and computer scientists and system operators at JSC, to present outstanding research results that were achieved through the use of the ESM partition, to train ESM users in GPU programming and to discuss the future of the ESM partition in the planned Helmholtz initiatives Pilot Lab Exascale Earth System Modelling (PL-EESM) and Joint Lab EESM.
After the opening of the symposium by FZJ board member Prof. Sebastian Schmidt, ESM project leader Prof. Thomas Jung (AWI) gave an introduction to the ESM project, while an additional element of the ESM project, the ESM partition on the Tier-0/1 supercomputer JUWELS in Jülich, was then presented by Dr. Norbert Attig (FZJ/JSC). Four success stories that the ESM project achieved in different areas of Earth system research were offered by ESM scientists Prof. Thomas Jung (AWI), Prof. Johanna Staneva (HZG), Prof. Olaf Kolditz (UFZ) and Prof. Stefan Kollet (FZJ/IBG-3). The presentations highlighted the integrative role and traction of the ESM project and the importance of access to high-caliber HPC resources for Earth System research.
The focus of the second day was on the use of GPUs and their impact on the research efforts within the project. DKRZ representative Dr. Joachim Biercamp presented the plans for the HPC system to be installed in 2020 that will likely develop in the framework of a closer cooperation with the computing centre in Jülich.
The third day of the symposium was dedicated to the second additional element of the ESM project, the Pilot Lab Exascale Earth System Modelling (PL-EESM), initiative that was presented by Dr. Martin Schultz (FZJ/JSC) together with the planned work package leaders. An ambitious programme lies ahead for this project, as it plans on making Earth System modelling fit for the future by developing and testing new concepts for modelling on heterogeneous exascale computer systems.
With the ESM Symposium, a further step was taken towards strengthening Earth system modelling on the Jülich Tier 0/1 HPC systems and intensifying the exchange of experience between Earth system and computer scientists.
