Data · dataset · 2026
Mixed-precision for linear solvers in global geophysical flows
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Semi-implicit (SI) time-stepping schemes for atmosphere and ocean models require elliptic solvers that work efficiently on modern supercomputers.
Description
This paper reports our study of the potential computational savings when using mixed precision arithmetic in the elliptic solvers. Precision levels as low as half (16 bits) are used and a detailed evaluation of the impact of reduced precision on the solver convergence and the solution quality is performed.
This study is conducted in the context of a novel SI shallow-water model on the sphere, purposely designed to mimic numerical intricacies of modern all-scale weather and climate (W&C) models. The governing algorithm of the shallow-water model is based on the non-oscillatory MPDATA methods for geophysical flows, whereas the resulting elliptic problem employs a strongly preconditioned non-symmetric Krylov-subspace Generalized Conjugated-Residual (GCR) solver, proven in advanced atmospheric applications.
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The classical longitude/latitude grid is deliberately chosen to retain the stiffness of global W&C models. The analysis of the precision reduction is done on a software level, using an emulator, whereas the performance is measured on actual reduced precision hardware. The reduced-precision experiments are conducted for established dynamical-core test-cases, like the Rossby-Haurwitz wavenumber 4 and a zonal orographic flow.
The study shows that selected key components of the elliptic solver, most prominently the preconditioning and the application of the linear operator, can be performed at the level of half precision. For these components, the use of half precision is found to yield a speed-up of a factor 4 compared to double precision for a wide range of problem sizes.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7j106zg ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/mixed-precision-for-linear-solvers-in-global-geophysic… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=9c1588f4-2ac1-45fe-b8ff-7534d450d… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Computational modelling and simulation in earth sciences 77%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 9c1588f4-2ac1-45fe-b8ff-7534d450dd2c | 13 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:field:370401 | enrichment · data ucar edu | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (77%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |