...microseconds
On the DELTA, the system timing function used was HWCLOCK.

...decomposition,
While the contribution to load from each cell is a fixed quantity, the load imbalance that results depends on the decomposition, how the cells are allocated to processors. The size and shape of partitions affect load imbalance. (Take the trivial case of all cells grouped onto one processor in the shape of the grid itself: the inefficiency due to load imbalance is zero.) Therefore, the timing and efficiency numbers quoted in this discussion are specific to the hypothetical decomposition in force.

...step
This was not true in the vector/shared-memory parallel version of the model, CCM2. The call to physics for each latitude was followed by the call to the FFT for that latitude. To efficiently block FFT communications in the parallel code, PCCM2 separated the calls to physics and the calls to the FFT into separate loops over latitude. Each time step, physics for all latitudes is complete before the synchronization imposed by message passing in the spectral dynamics.

michalak@
Wed Dec 7 03:37:14 CST 1994