Quickstart Guide

Note

E3SM-Unified is supported only on Linux, OSX and HPC platforms. It is not supported on Windows.

Accessing E3SM-Unified on Supported Machines

On most E3SM-supported HPC systems, E3SM-Unified is already installed and ready to use via an activation script.

Example Activation Commands

# Andes
source /ccs/proj/cli115/software/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_andes.sh

# Anvil
source /lcrc/soft/climate/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_anvil.sh

# Chrysalis
source /lcrc/soft/climate/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_chrysalis.sh

# Compy
source /share/apps/E3SM/conda_envs/load_latest_e3sm_unified_compy.sh

# Dane
source /usr/workspace/e3sm/apps/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_dane.sh

# Frontier
source /ccs/proj/cli115/software/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_frontier.sh

# Perlmutter
source /global/common/software/e3sm/anaconda_envs/load_latest_e3sm_unified_pm-cpu.sh

# Polaris (ALCF)
source /lus/grand/projects/E3SMinput/soft/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_polaris.sh

# Ruby
source /usr/workspace/e3sm/apps/e3sm-unified/load_latest_e3sm_unified_ruby.sh

Once the script is sourced, you’ll have access to all the tools provided by E3SM-Unified in your environment.

Verifying Installation

After activation, you can verify that the environment is correctly loaded by testing if major packages are importable:

python -c "import xarray, e3sm_diags, mpas_analysis, zppy"

Running on Compute Nodes (Optional but Recommended)

Many E3SM-Unified tools (e.g., MOAB, MPAS-Analysis, NCO, TempestRemap) benefit from running on compute nodes using MPI-enabled system builds.

Check your system documentation for how to launch interactive compute sessions (e.g., srun, salloc, or qsub).

Installing E3SM-Unified on an Unsupported System

E3SM-Unified is not officially supported on Linux or Mac laptops or workstations, but users can install it using miniforge3.

Step-by-Step (Linux):

# Install miniforge3
wget "https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"
bash "Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"

# Create a new environment
conda create -n esm-unified -c conda-forge e3sm-unified

# Activate it
conda activate e3sm-unified

Note: The above instructions also work for macOS machines with intel hardware.

Step-by-Step (macOS with Apple Silicon)

# starts a shell in "Rosetta" mode
arch -x86_64 /bin/bash --login

# create the conda-environment to install e3sm-unified within
CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda create -n e3sm-unified python=3.10

# activate the environment and set an environmental variable
conda activate e3sm-unified
conda env config vars set CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64

# deactivate and re-activate the environment for the above command to propagate
conda deactivate
conda activate e3sm-unified

# now you can actually install e3sm-unified
conda install -c conda-forge e3sm-unified

# exit the "Rosetta" mode shell
exit

Checking if you macOS machine has Apple Silicon:

Click the Apple menu at the top-left of your screen.
Select “About This Mac”: from the dropdown menu.
- If you see “Chip” followed by M1, M2, M3, or M4, your Mac has Apple silicon.