The Improvement of Computational Efficiency in KIM by an Adaptive Time-step Algorithm

A numerical forecasting models usually predict future states by performing time integration considering fixed static time-steps. A time-step that is too long can cause model instability and failure of forecast simulation, and a time-step that is too short can cause unnecessary time integration calculations. Thus, in numerical models, the time-step size can be determined by the CFL (Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy)-condition, and this condition acts as a necessary condition for finding a numerical solution. A static time-step is defined as using the same fixed time-step for time integration. On the other hand, applying a different time-step for each integration while guaranteeing the stability of the solution in time advancement is called an adaptive time-step. The adaptive time-step algorithm is a method of presenting the maximum usable time-step suitable for each integration based on the CFL-condition for the adaptive time-step. In this paper, the adaptive time-step algorithm is applied for the Korean Integrated Model (KIM) to determine suitable parameters used for the adaptive time-step algorithm through the monthly verifications of 10-day simulations (during January and July 2017) at about 12 km resolution. By comparing the numerical results obtained by applying the 25 second static time-step to KIM in Supercomputer 5 (Nurion), it shows similar results in terms of forecast quality, presents the maximum available time-step for each integration, and improves the calculation efficiency by reducing the number of total time integrations by 19%.