Scheduled Downtime
On Friday 21 April 2023 @ 5pm MT, this website will be down for maintenance and expected to return online the morning of 24 April 2023 at the latest

MPAS-Limited Area creates wrong lateral boundary files

jkukulies

Member
I am running an MPAS Limited Area simulation over CONUS with ERA5 boundary conditions and find that the lateral boundary condition files produced by MPAS (lbc*nc) contain wrong values that are not in line with the underlying ERA5 data they were created from. Specifically, I can see that all 55 levels contain the same values for lbc_qv which should vary with altitude. Strangely, I do not see the same values for all 55 levels for other variables (e.g. lbc_u).

The result is also evident in the simulation result. There is no visible inflow of moisture in the Pacific Northwest that is clearly visible in ERA5:

AGV_vUeHLUZeCAz8CwbNBJWJkkc9h0kt-1oZEFQsflYCP5qeLPp-c9picbMAqU4HWlseiNiCzQOBy-BgTRe0v9_47icigogPPmY5uK8OB7xmLkCaYkYfPxPi8e8djfq-4b7CR_tWOV9kNg=s2048
AGV_vUcp8xhrtGdPJgh55vsbmaUYwtWMqUTElyOFajynZod5M0g797jSY7rVdk-g0c7cUc0xbdGqLHPEY-SHNWCXkl3CRoK2I4TvLKdIAHYUL0gCLqpZotQFgrco4XGNajD5BH2MYwPD=s2048



The log-file for the model run shows that the lateral boundary conditions are correctly updated, but I am confused about the log.init_atmosphere file used for creating the boundary conditions because it shows that it assumes model levels and interpolates values onto pressure levels, although my intermediate files are structured in pressure levels.

I used this python script to create the intermediate files: GitHub - NCAR/era5_to_int: A simple Python script for converting ERA5 model-level netCDF files to the WPS intermediate format and those files are located in /glade/derecho/scratch/kukulies/era5/met_data/.

The lbc*nc files are located in /glade/campaign/mmm/c3we/juliak/MPAS_C404/limited_area_3km/ and the run directory for the simulation (and creation of lateral boundary conditions) is /glade/work/kukulies/MPAS_v8.2.3/MPAS-Model.


Many thanks in advance!
Julia
 
Hi Julia,

Would you please change permission to your files in derecho? I have no access to your data, for example,

ncdump -h /glade/campaign/mmm/c3we/juliak/MPAS_C404/limited_area_3km/MPAS_C404_limited_area_3km.init.nc

yields

/glade/campaign/mmm/c3we/juliak/MPAS_C404/limited_area_3km/MPAS_C404_limited_area_3km.init.nc: Permission denied

Thanks.
 
Top