CUAS-MPI

CUAS-MPI is the MPI-parallel implementation of the confined-unconfined aquifer system model (Beyer et al., 2018, Fischler et al., 2023) for subglacial hydrology. The model uses a single-layer equivalent porous medium approach and solves a two-dimensional Darcy-type groundwater flow equation for confined and unconfined aquifer conditions. It computes contributions of ice melt, creep and cavity opening to evolve effective aquifer properties. It is thus applicable for inefficient (distributed) and efficient (channelized) water transport without the need to represent individual channels.

CUAS-MPI is written in performance-oriented C/C++ employing process parallelism using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) to ensure efficient high-resolution simulations of entire ice sheets. The implementation uses the Network Common Data Format (NetCDF) for I/O and the Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc) to handle grids, equation systems, and solvers. These HPC software infrastructures are encapsulated to allow for further development of the underlying physics model. CUAS-MPI offers code infrastructure for coupling to, e.g., large-scale ice sheet models via the preCICE (Precise Code Interaction Coupling Environment) library for multi-physics simulations and can be used as a library.

References

• Y. Fischler et al., “A parallel implementation of the confined–unconfined aquifer system model for subglacial hydrology: design, verification, and performance analysis (CUAS-MPI v0.1.0),” Geoscientific Model Development, vol. 16, no. 18, pp. 5305–5322, Sep. 2023, doi: 10.5194/gmd-16-5305-2023.
• S. Beyer, T. Kleiner, V. Aizinger, M. Rückamp, and A. Humbert, “A confined–unconfined aquifer model for subglacial hydrology and its application to the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream,” The Cryosphere, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 3931–3947, Dec. 2018, doi: 10.5194/tc-12-3931-2018.