Category: About the ORCHIDEE project team

ORCHIDEE team meetings

The ORCHIDEE project group has defined a series of regular meetings to achieve the objectives of the project group and to maintain a regular flow of information between the core “ORCHIDEE project group” and the ensemble of developers and users (non-permanent scientists and engineers). The idea is to have regular meetings each week and to alternate between:

• • Technical meetings: Restricted to the steering committee and few other active developers. These concern management of the code, scientific and technical discussions concerning the implementation of the ORCHIDEE project decisions, and follow-ups of engineering work.
  • Project meetings: Restricted to the steering committee. The main objectives are general decision making and coordination of the model developement.
  • Developer/user meeting: Open to all. The main objectives are: 1) to inform all developers/users of the code about the ongoing ORCHIDEE developments and branch integration into the main version, and 2) to present and discuss a specific ongoing development (scientific or technical).

Management of the code:

In order to increase the efficiency of the code maintenance, development and management, we have grouped the different modules and routines by processes/technical aspects, following the diagram below. For each process or technical aspect, one person from the steering committee is responsible for managing all technical and scientific problems/bugs that arise (usually managed through a “ticket” system) and to report to the steering committee about the evolution of that part of the code.

How to contact us ?

Three mailing lists are used in order to facilitate the flow of information at different levels.

• • ORCHIDEE projet (orchidee-projet@listes.ipsl.fr): This list is restricted to the steering committee. It may be used by external people for a general request about the ORCHIDEE project
  • ORCHIDEE DEV (orchidee-dev@listes.ipsl.fr): To facilitate the exchange of technical information among all users/developers of the ORCHIDEE model, in paticular to circulate information on new technical improvements/developments, to report problems/bugs and to notify about ‘commits’ made by the ORCHIDEE team. You can subscribe at https://listes.ipsl.fr/sympa/info/orchidee-dev
  • ORCHIDEE HELP (orchidee-help@listes.ipsl.fr): For developers or users of the ORCHIDEE model to ask specific questions (mainly technical) linked to the use of the model or to report problems/bugs. This mailing list should be used only as a last resort.

Objectives of the team

The ORCHIDEE project is dedicated to the development of the global Land Surface Model (LSM) ORCHIDEE and its use for a wide range of applications (from land surface processes to climate studies). The project is centered around a project team (referred to as the “ORCHIDEE project group”) whose main objective is to coordinate the strategy for the model development, maintenance, validation, distribution, and valorisation.

The project team consists of a “steering committee” including around 15 scientists (see figure below) who meet every two months to discuss and coordinate all model developments, validation and valorisation. Three specific tasks linked to the main responsabilities of the project team have been identified with a key leader:

• • Maintenance of the ORCHIDEE code (J. Ghattas).
  • Evaluation and validation of successive code releases (N. Vuichard).
  • General code quality, including documentation, risk assessment, and promotion of the code (F. Maignan).

Project leader: Philippe Peylin

Figure 1: Organisation of the project team

Role & responsabilities of the team

The ORCHIDEE project group:

Makes decisions about

• • the developments that will integrate into the standard version of ORCHIDEE
  • the order in which these developments will be included

Coordinates:

• • Recruitment of engineers dedicated to model developments
  • Planning of the different engineers resources
  • Shared funding to hire some of the engineers
• • Interactions with the different laboratories and institutes that are involved in the
    development of the model, and in particular the “pôle de modélisation” of IPSL institute.

Guarantees:

• • Regular deliveries of tagged versions of the model and their robustness at several computer centers (CCRT, IDRIS, LSCE)
  • Scientific evaluation
  • Updates of code documentation within these tagged versions
  • Production, archiving and access to reference simulations (both uncoupled and coupled to the GCM)
  • Training to new users through regular courses
  • User support through several tools (wiki site, help list via email, etc)

Communicates to all partners (developers, users, partner institutes) information on :

• • developement planning and their integration into the main code
  • ongoing and forthcoming research projects that use ORCHIDEE
  • mid-term strategy plans by annually updating this document.

Organises:

• • an annual general assembly
• • a project review with the partner institute managements
    (LMD and LSCE laboratories, “pôle de modélisation” of IPSL)

HOW to contact us ?

See contact section

Core team of ORCHIDEE

Other users and developers

The Orchidee project was established across several laboratories and it is dedicated to development of the global Land Surface Model (LSM) ORCHIDEE and its use for a wide range of applications from land surface processes to climate studies. The different steps of the ORCHIDEE model/project genesis are summarized in the figure below.

The genesis of ORCHIDEE

During the 1980s, the development at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) of a global General Circulation Model (GCM) stimulated the development of a specific land surface model to calculate the energy and water balance of terrestrial ecosystems (Laval et al., 1981). In the early 1990s, the model was substantially refined with a description of the earth surface categorized into several biomes called PFTs (Plant Functional Types) which led to a version, named SECHIBA (Ducoudré et al., 1993). In the late 1990s and in the early 2000s, the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) ORCHIDEE (Krinner et al., 2005) was created, based on the coupling of SECHIBA with i) a carbon module, STOMATE describing the flow of carbon within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and ii) a dynamic vegetation module, inherited from the LPJ model, describing the evolution of natural vegetation with climate. Such effort was conducted between the LMD and LSCE laboratories.

Figure: History of the ORCHIDEE model development and of the project team development.

A team to follow and coordinate the model developements

After the mid 2000s, there has been an exponential increase in the number of users and developers in several laboratories: within IPSL (LSCE, LMD, LOCEAN), outside IPSL (SISYPHE in Paris and LGGE in Grenoble) and internationally (PKU university in China, UCLM Toledo in Spain, University of Antwerp (UA) and UGhent university in Belgium). The increase of users and associated projects was accompanied by a large number of new developments. In this context, the need to merge the new model “branches” into a common version became crucial especially to address integrated scientific questions, but it also became highly challenging. The main ORCHIDEE developers/users have thus decided to reinforce the previous organisation (carried by the IPSL) and to operate as a more structured project across laboratories. This process that started at LSCE was rapidly enlarged to the IPSL and few other national and international laboratories (listed above) with the objectives to formalize communication, developments, planning and decision making around the model. The reorganisation into a new project structure has been adapted to the size and ambitions of the group. This web site summarize the foundation of this recent organization.