CESM Tutorial

Summary
The CESM tutorial was organized by the NCAR and took place at the Mesa Lab in Boulder, Colorado. Attending the tutorial gave me a better understanding of how the model works and some first hands-on experience with the CESM2.0. Next to that I got a new idea for a modeling experiment during the tutorial.

Activities & personal benefits
Throughout the week of the CESM tutorial every day a bus would come to pick us up from the hotel and drive us up to the mesa lab, where the tutorial was taking place. On the first day of the tutorial we were warmly welcomed with some inspiring talks. One of those talks was about being inclusive and how you can get the most out of the workshop by taking good care of yourself. This set a nice atmosphere for the rest of the week, during which there was plenty of opportunity to get to meet the other tutorial participants and get to know how they use CESM.
In the morning and early afternoon we would have lectures every day. During these lectures I got a better understanding of this complex fully coupled model, with roughly 1.5 million lines of code. There were both lectures about the CESM itself, e.g. the different components of the model, and about research that is being done with the model. In the afternoon there were computer practical sessions. In the practicals I learned how to work on a super computer and got some first hands on experience CESM2, a version of CESM that is not yet released. The things I learned during this workshop will help me once I start setting up my own model experiments with CESM. Next to that I got new insights on CESM ensembles and a new idea for the modeling experiments that I am currently working on. I would like to thank NCAR, NSF, DOE and ArcTrain for making it possible for me to attend the tutorial.

Anouk Vlug