SOILHGT not included in met_em files

[trudee]

I am using the era5 pressure level grb files to generate met_em files. I have included the invariant fields from /glade/campaign/collections/rda/data/d633000/e5.oper.invariant when running ungrib, but the SOILHGT is not included in the met_em files.
I am using the Vtable.ECMWF. Am I missing a step, or is SOILHGT not supposed to be in the met_em files when using ERA5 pressure level data?

 

[Ming Chen]

We no longer support ERA5 GRIB format data. Please switch to ERA5 netCDF. This post provides details and tools to process ERA5 netCDF datafiles.

 

[trudee]

I am aware that the .grb files are going away, which is why I want to compare met_files generated with .grb files versus generated with .netcdf files.
The tool you are pointing towards is for ERA5 model levels, while I use pressure levels. We have a script for converting netcdf files to intermediate, but we see large differences because SOILHGT is not included in the met_em files when using the .grb files.

However, real.exe runs fine without the SOILHGT in the met_em files. So, am I missing a step when generating the met_em files, or is SOILHGT not needed for WRF when using ERA5 pressure level data?

 

[Rakesh]

I have also the same question, the script does not include GEOPT, HGT, SOILHGT

 

[jacob.stu.allen]

Thanks for bringing up @trudee and @Rakesh, I'm also not seeing SOILHGT in the met_em files when produced using .grb. I'm also curious as to why an error isn't flagged when running real.exe without SOILHGT in the met_em files. If possible, this would be good to know for many other simulations that have been run using ERA5 grib data.

 

[Ming Chen]

Dear All,

if you continue to use ERA5 data in GRIB format, then you will need to obtain both pressure level data and surface invariant data. SOILGHT can be extracted from the GRIB invariant data file. Suppose you have the intermediate file name of the invariant variables as INVAR:yyyy-mm-dd_hh, you can rename it as INVAR, then in your namelist.wps, set the options as:

&metgrid
          fg_name = 'PRES',
          io_form_metgrid = 2,
          constants_name  = './INVAR'

Here PRES is the prefix of the intermediate files for pressure level data.

After running metgrid.exe, SOILHGT should be included in met_em files. It is always nice to have SOILGHT in met_em files.

Please let me know whether the above solution works for you.

 

[Aurora_LagosD]

We no longer support ERA5 GRIB format data. Please switch to ERA5 netCDF. This post provides details and tools to process ERA5 netCDF datafiles.

Dear Ming Chen,

Thank you very much for your explanation. However, I still have two questions:

1) If I use WPS-4.2, will ERA5 in GRIB format still stop working?
2) Will I be able to use ERA5 in GRIB format for dates between 2010 and 2020?

I appreciate your time and assistance.

 

[Ming Chen]

I believe that in NCAR RDA, all ERA5 in GRIB format are replaced by netCDF format data.

However, ERA5 Reanalysis in GRIB format will remain available for download through the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

WPS is still able to process ERA5 in GRIB format.