publications

2025

1. Surface to Seafloor: A Generative AI Framework for Decoding the Ocean Interior State

   Andre N. Souza, Simone Silvestri, Katherine Deck, and 3 more authors

   2025
2. High-level, high-resolution ocean modeling at all scales with Oceananigans

   Gregory L. Wagner, Simone Silvestri, Navid C. Constantinou, and 11 more authors

   2025
3. A WENO finite-volume scheme for the evolution of potential vorticity in isopycnal ocean models

   Wenda Zhang, Yi-Hung Kuo, Simone Silvestri, and 3 more authors

   2025

   Bib

   @misc{zhang2025wenoMOM,
     title = {A WENO finite-volume scheme for the evolution of potential vorticity in isopycnal ocean models},
     author = {Zhang, Wenda and Kuo, Yi-Hung and Silvestri, Simone and Adcroft, Alistair and Hallberg, Robert and Griffies, Stephen M.},
     journal = {ESS Open Archive},
     year = {2025},
     doi = {10.22541/essoar.175380391.18723979/v1}
   }

4. A GPU-Based Ocean Dynamical Core for Routine Mesoscale-Resolving Climate Simulations

   Simone Silvestri, Gregory L. Wagner, Navid C. Constantinou, and 7 more authors

   Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2025

   e2024MS004465 2024MS004465

   Abs Bib

   Abstract We describe an ocean hydrostatic dynamical core implemented in Oceananigans optimized for Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) architectures. On 64 A100 GPUs, equivalent to 16 computational nodes in current state-of-the-art supercomputers, our dynamical core can simulate a decade of near-global ocean dynamics per wall-clock day at an 8-km horizontal resolution; a resolution adequate to resolve the ocean’s mesoscale eddy field. Such efficiency, achieved with relatively modest hardware resources, suggests that climate simulations on GPUs can incorporate fully eddy-resolving ocean models. This removes a major source of systematic bias in current IPCC coupled model projections, the parameterization of ocean eddies, and represents a major advance in climate modeling. We discuss the computational strategies, focusing on GPU-specific optimization and numerical implementation details that enable such high performance.

   @article{Silvestri2025,
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Wagner, Gregory L. and Constantinou, Navid C. and Hill, Christopher N. and Campin, Jean-Michel and Souza, Andre N. and Bishnu, Siddhartha and Churavy, Valentin and Marshall, John and Ferrari, Raffaele},
     title = {A GPU-Based Ocean Dynamical Core for Routine Mesoscale-Resolving Climate Simulations},
     journal = {Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
     volume = {17},
     number = {4},
     pages = {e2024MS004465},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004465},
     url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2024MS004465},
     note = {e2024MS004465 2024MS004465},
     year = {2025}
   }

5. Formulation and Calibration of CATKE, a One-Equation Parameterization for Microscale Ocean Mixing

   Gregory LeClaire Wagner, Adeline Hillier, Navid Constantinou, and 8 more authors

   Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2025

   e2024MS004522 2024MS004522

   Abs Bib

   Abstract We describe CATKE, a parameterization for fluxes associated with small-scale or “microscale” ocean turbulent mixing on scales between 1 and 100 m. CATKE uses a downgradient formulation that depends on a prognostic turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) variable and a diagnostic mixing length scale that includes a dynamic convective adjustment (CA) component. With its dynamic convective mixing length, CATKE predicts not just the depth spanned by convective plumes but also the characteristic convective mixing timescale, an important aspect of turbulent convection not captured by simpler static CA schemes. As a result, CATKE can describe the competition between convection and other processes such as shear-driven mixing and baroclinic restratification. To calibrate CATKE, we use Ensemble Kalman Inversion to minimize the error between 21 large eddy simulations (LESs) and predictions of the LES data by CATKE-parameterized single column simulations at three different vertical resolutions. We find that CATKE makes accurate predictions of both idealized and realistic LES compared to microscale turbulence parameterizations commonly used in climate models.

   @article{Wagner_2023,
     author = {Wagner, Gregory LeClaire and Hillier, Adeline and Constantinou, Navid and Silvestri, Simone and Souza, Andre and Burns, Keaton and Ramadhan, Ali and Hill, Christopher and Campin, Jean-Michel and Marshall, John and Ferrari, Raffaele},
     title = {Formulation and Calibration of CATKE, a One-Equation Parameterization for Microscale Ocean Mixing},
     journal = {Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
     volume = {17},
     number = {4},
     pages = {e2024MS004522},
     keywords = {turbulence, ocean modeling, boundary layers, machine learning, large eddy simulation, parameterization},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004522},
     url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2024MS004522},
     note = {e2024MS004522 2024MS004522},
     year = {2025}
   }

2024

1. A Modified Bisecting K-Means for Approximating Transfer Operators: Application to the Lorenz Equations

   Andre N. Souza, and Simone Silvestri

   2024

   Bib

   @misc{souza2024modifiedbisectingkmeansapproximating,
     title = {A Modified Bisecting K-Means for Approximating Transfer Operators: Application to the Lorenz Equations},
     author = {Souza, Andre N. and Silvestri, Simone},
     year = {2024},
     eprint = {2412.03734},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {physics.comp-ph},
   }

2. SpeedyWeather.jl: Reinventing atmospheric general circulation models towards interactivity and extensibility

   Milan Klöwer, Maximilian Gelbrecht, Daisuke Hotta, and 8 more authors

   Journal of Open Source Software, 2024

   Bib

   @article{SpeedyWeatherJOSS,
     doi = {10.21105/joss.06323},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06323},
     year = {2024},
     publisher = {The Open Journal},
     volume = {9},
     number = {98},
     pages = {6323},
     author = {Klöwer, Milan and Gelbrecht, Maximilian and Hotta, Daisuke and Willmert, Justin and Silvestri, Simone and Wagner, Gregory L. and White, Alistair and Hatfield, Sam and Kimpson, Tom and Constantinou, Navid C. and Hill, Chris},
     title = {{SpeedyWeather.jl: Reinventing atmospheric general circulation models towards interactivity and extensibility}},
     journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
   }

3. AI-driven emulation of ocean dynamics on sub-seasonal scales

   Suyash Bire, Jean Kossaifi, Simone Silvestri, and 4 more authors

   In ICLR Workshop on Climate Change AI, May 2024

   Bib

   @inproceedings{bire2024,
     title = {{AI}-driven emulation of ocean dynamics on sub-seasonal scales},
     author = {Bire, Suyash and Kossaifi, Jean and Silvestri, Simone and Kovachki, Nikola and Azizzadenesheli, Kamyar and Hill, Chris N and Anandkumar, Anima},
     booktitle = {ICLR Workshop on Climate Change AI},
     month = may,
     year = {2024}
   }

4. A New WENO-Based Momentum Advection Scheme for Simulations of Ocean Mesoscale Turbulence

   Simone Silvestri, Gregory Wagner, Jean-Michel Campin, and 4 more authors

   Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, May 2024

   Bib PDF

   @article{Simone_silvestri_WENO,
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Wagner, Gregory and Campin, Jean-Michel and Constantinou, Navid and Hill, Christopher and Souza, Andre and Ferrari, Raffaele},
     title = {A New WENO-Based Momentum Advection Scheme for Simulations of Ocean Mesoscale Turbulence},
     journal = {Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
     volume = {16},
     number = {7},
     pages = {e2023MS004130},
     keywords = {numerical modeling, mesoscale ocean turbulence, eddy-permitting simulations},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS004130},
     year = {2024},
   }

2023

1. OceanBioME.jl: A flexible environment for modelling the coupled interactions between ocean biogeochemistry and physics

   Jago Strong-Wright, Si Chen, Navid C. Constantinou, and 3 more authors

   Journal of Open Source Software, May 2023

   Bib

   @article{Strong-Wright2023,
     doi = {10.21105/joss.05669},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.05669},
     year = {2023},
     publisher = {The Open Journal},
     volume = {8},
     number = {90},
     pages = {5669},
     author = {Strong-Wright, Jago and Chen, Si and Constantinou, Navid C. and Silvestri, Simone and Wagner, Gregory LeClaire and Taylor, John R.},
     title = {OceanBioME.jl: A flexible environment for modelling the coupled interactions between ocean biogeochemistry and physics},
     journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
   }

2. Oceananigans.jl: A model that achieves breakthrough resolution, memory and energy efficiency in global ocean simulations

   Simone Silvestri, Gregory Wagner, Christopher Hill, and 10 more authors

   May 2023

   Bib

   @misc{silvestri2023oceananigansjl,
     title = {Oceananigans.jl: A model that achieves breakthrough resolution, memory and energy efficiency in global ocean simulations},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Wagner, Gregory and Hill, Christopher and Ardakani, Matin Raayai and Blaschke, Johannes and Campin, Jean-Michel and Churavy, Valentin and Constantinou, Navid and Edelman, Alan and Marshall, John and Ramadhan, Ali and Souza, Andre and Ferrari, Raffaele},
     year = {2023},
     eprint = {2309.06662},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {physics.ao-ph}
   }

2021

1. Turbulence modulation in thermally expanding and contracting flows

   Simone Silvestri, and Rene Pecnik

   Journal of Fluid Mechanics, May 2021

   Bib PDF

   @article{silvestri_pecnik_2021,
     title = {Turbulence modulation in thermally expanding and contracting flows},
     volume = {926},
     doi = {10.1017/jfm.2021.726},
     journal = {Journal of Fluid Mechanics},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Pecnik, Rene},
     year = {2021},
     pages = {A30},
   }

2. Modelling turbulent heat flux accounting for Turbulence-Radiation Interactions

   Simone Silvestri, Dirk J.E.M. Roekaerts, and Rene Pecnik

   International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, May 2021

   Bib PDF

   @article{SILVESTRI2021108728,
     title = {Modelling turbulent heat flux accounting for Turbulence-Radiation Interactions},
     journal = {International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow},
     volume = {89},
     pages = {108728},
     year = {2021},
     issn = {0142-727X},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2020.108728},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Roekaerts, Dirk J.E.M. and Pecnik, Rene},
   }

2020

1. Mixed convection and radiation heat transfer in porous media for solar thermal applications

   Simone Silvestri, and Dirk J.E.M. Roekarts

   May 2020

   Bib

   @book{bookchapter,
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Roekarts, Dirk J.E.M.},
     title = {Mixed convection and radiation heat transfer in porous media for solar thermal applications},
     booktitle = {Convective heat transfer in porous media},
     publisher = {CRC Press},
     doi = {10.1201/9780429020261},
     year = {2020},
     editor = {Mahmoudi, Yasser and Hooman, Kamel and Vafai, Kambiz},
     pages = {227-262},
     chapter = {12}
   }

2019

1. A fast GPU Monte Carlo radiative heat transfer implementation for coupling with direct numerical simulation

   Simone Silvestri, and Rene Pecnik

   Journal of Computational Physics, May 2019

   Bib PDF

   @article{SILVESTRI2019100032,
     title = {A fast GPU Monte Carlo radiative heat transfer implementation for coupling with direct numerical simulation},
     journal = {Journal of Computational Physics},
     volume = {3},
     pages = {100032},
     year = {2019},
     issn = {2590-0552},
     doi = {10.1016/j.jcpx.2019.100032},
     url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590055219300484},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Pecnik, Rene},
   }

2. Assessing turbulence-radiation interactions in turbulent flows of non-gray media

   Simone Silvestri, Dirk J.E.M. Roekaerts, and Rene Pecnik

   Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, May 2019

   Bib PDF

   @article{SILVESTRI2019134,
     title = {Assessing turbulence-radiation interactions in turbulent flows of non-gray media},
     journal = {Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer},
     volume = {233},
     pages = {134-148},
     year = {2019},
     issn = {0022-4073},
     doi = {10.1016/j.jqsrt.2019.05.018},
     url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022407318307234},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Roekaerts, Dirk J.E.M. and Pecnik, Rene},
   }

2018

1. Turbulence-radiation interaction in channel flow with various optical depths

   Simone Silvestri, Ashish Patel, Dirk J.E.M. Roekaerts, and 1 more author

   Journal of Fluid Mechanics, May 2018

   Bib PDF

   @article{silvestri_patel_roekaerts_pecnik_2018,
     title = {Turbulence-radiation interaction in channel flow with various optical depths},
     volume = {834},
     doi = {10.1017/jfm.2017.738},
     journal = {Journal of Fluid Mechanics},
     publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
     author = {Silvestri, Simone and Patel, Ashish and Roekaerts, Dirk J.E.M. and Pecnik, Rene},
     year = {2018},
     pages = {359-384},
   }