Air quality modeling is now available at AWS and Azure
The latest versions of CMAQ, WRF-CMAQ and CAMx are now available on images from the AWS and Azure Marketplaces. These apps come precompiled and optimized for different processors and architectures (x86_64 and AArch64). The images are available to any organization or person with valid AWS or Azure accounts. CMAQ includes the ISAM and DDM3D models in addition to the standard compilation. The images also incorporate several pre and postprocessing tools such as NCL, SMOKE, IDV or VERDI among others.
We have performed several benchmarks with the images to evaluate performance with different public cloud hardware. For CMAQ, the first benchmark is the standard U.S. Southeast (2016) benchmark with a domain size of 100x80x35 and 218 tracked species. The figure shows wall (computational) times from the benchmark versus the number of cores for different AWS/Azure options and the EPA cluster.
The results with the new AMD EPYC3 processor (codenamed “Milan”) are particularly impressive as wall times are below 200 s for single instances.
In addition to the stand-alone CMAQ, we have also benchmarked a similar case using WRF-CMAQ with short-wave feedback. The computational times are approximately five times the previous measurements as the figure shows:
When compared versus the EPA cluster, the gains for WRF-CMAQ with cloud hardware are also very significant. Another CMAQ benchmark that is sometimes used to assess large system covers the continental U.S. (CONUS1) with a 499x299x35 grid and 219 tracked species. The figure shows the results for the CONUS1 benchmark with AWS IaaS.
Contact us if you have any question about performance or cost for Air Quality Modeling in the cloud.