About

The System for Integrated Modeling of the Atmosphere (SIMA) is a unified community atmospheric modeling framework, for use in an Earth System Model, such as the Community Earth System Model (CESM). The current incarnation of SIMA enables diverse configurations of the atmosphere model inside of CESM, for applications spanning minutes to centuries and cloud to global scales, including atmospheric forecasts and projections of the atmospheric state and composition from the surface into the thermosphere.

SIMA emerged as a response to recommendations from NCAR advisory panels and NSF site visit team panels that identified the opportunity for NCAR to have a more unified and integrated approach to atmospheric modeling. There is a desire and need for modeling systems to reduce complexity and provide capabilities for broader, more comprehensive applications. To date, excellent progress has already been made developing SIMA along four key application avenues: i) Weather, ii) Climate, iii) Chemistry, and iv) Geospace. 

For general questions about the SIMA project, please contact Mary Barth barthm@ucar.edu.