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Time to create vertical grid

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RCarpenter

Member
I am noticing that the amount of time it takes to create the vertical grid is significant, perhaps more than half the time of an init_atmosphere run. I am using typical/default parameters in the namelist. Is there a way to speed this up? Or, can init_atmosphere be run with only config_vertical_grid = true, and the results saved, so this step doesn't have to be repeated for multiple runs?
 
In an absolute sense, how long is it taking to generate a vertical grid? How many cells are in your horizontal mesh, and how many MPI ranks are you using?

In any case, as you suggested, you can save the vertical grid and re-use it across simulations. You would first generate just the vertical grid from a "static" file with the following namelist settings:
Code:
&preproc_stages
    config_static_interp = false
    config_native_gwd_static = false
    config_vertical_grid = true
    config_met_interp = false
    config_input_sst = false
    config_frac_seaice = false
/
Then, you could create ICs by interpolating meteorological fields to the pre-computed vertical grid with the following namelist settings:
Code:
&preproc_stages
    config_static_interp = false
    config_native_gwd_static = false
    config_vertical_grid = false
    config_met_interp = true
    config_input_sst = false
    config_frac_seaice = true
/
 
I was using a single rank for the 46-12km mesh, and it was taking a while. With many MPI ranks I see that the overall time, including vertical grid generation, is quite small, so this isn't going to be an issue. Thanks for the quick response.
 
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