Interpreting tslist output

Hello, I have some tslist data I'm having difficulty interpreting. The first line of output for 'PH' or geopotential height is

0.007500 0.00000 55.74362 135.81480

which tells me that for the first time step (0.0075 hours from start of simulation) the height of data for first column is zero (i.e. surface?), the 2nd column is for data at first model level (56m) and 3rd column is 2nd model level (136m)

But the UU and VV outputs are, respectively:

0.007500 1.20660 1.21319 1.32022
0.007500 10.24203 10.28799 10.30176

As you can see, the 'surface' level u and v data are almost equal to the model level 1 and 2 data, which doesn't make sense. They should be somewhat lower.

Looking at the TS data we have in the first few entries:

1 0.007500 1 55 47 295.68555 0.01267 1.03798 8.86930

Now the u and v components at 10m are 1.0 and 8.9 m/s. respectively. Which makes more sense.

So, how do I interpret the 'surface' level data in the UU and VV files? Are they just erroneous and should they be disregarded?

Thanks!

Hi,
I would like to apologize that this question has gone unanswered for so long. In looking through older posts, I found this, and it must have somehow gotten overlooked, which is never our intention. Are you still struggling with this, or were you able to figure this out?

Hello, thanks for responding. I haven't resolved this but have just been ignoring the UU and VV output at 0.0m above the surface. Instead I use the remaining columns and combine that with the TS output at 10m.

Any insight you have on this would be appreciated!

Mike

Hi Mike,

The only file that should show surface values is the *.TS file. All of the other files should show the first column, which is the model time in hours, and then each column after is the relevant variable at model level 1, 2, 3, ... etc. So it actually does look like your U/V may be accurate, depending on how far off the ground your first model level starts. As to why the first model level for your geopotential height field is showing 0.0, I'm not sure. Could the location possibly be somewhere slightly below sea-level, so that the first model level is very close to sea-level?