PROGRAM dart_to_ncommas

Attention

NCOMMAS works with versions of DART before Manhattan (9.x.x) and has yet to be updated. If you are interested in using NCOMMAS with more recent versions of DART, contact DAReS staff to assess the feasibility of an update. Until that time, you should consider this documentation as out-of-date.

dart_to_ncommas is the program that updates a ncommas netCDF-format restart file (usually ncommas_restart.nc) with the state information contained in a DART output/restart file (e.g. perfect_ics, filter_ics, ... ). Only the CURRENT values in the ncommas restart file will be updated. The DART model time is compared to the time in the ncommas restart file. If the last time in the restart file does not match the DART model time, the program issues an error message and aborts.
From the user perspective, most of the time dart_to_ncommas will be used on DART files that have a header containing one time stamp followed by the model state.
The dart_to_ncommas_nml namelist allows dart_to_ncommas to read the assim_model_state_ic files that have two timestamps in the header. These files are temporarily generated when DART is used to advance the model. One timestamp is the ‘advance_to’ time, the other is the ‘valid_time’ of the model state. In this case, a namelist for ncommas (called ncommas_in.DART) is written that contains the &time_manager_nml settings appropriate to advance ncommas to the time requested by DART. The repository version of the advance_model.csh script has a section to ensure the proper DART namelist settings for this case.
Conditions required for successful execution of dart_to_ncommas:

  • a valid input.nml namelist file for DART

  • a valid ncommas_vars.nml namelist file for ncommas - the same one used to create the DART state vector, naturally,

  • a DART file (typically filter_restart.xxxx or filter_ics.xxxx)

  • a ncommas restart file (typically ncommas_restart.nc).

Since this program is called repeatedly for every ensemble member, we have found it convenient to link the DART input file to the default input filename (dart_restart). The same thing goes true for the ncommas output filename ncommas_restart.nc.

Namelist

This namelist is read from the file input.nml. Namelists start with an ampersand ‘&’ and terminate with a slash ‘/’. Character strings that contain a ‘/’ must be enclosed in quotes to prevent them from prematurely terminating the namelist.

&model_nml
   ncommas_restart_filename     = 'ncommas_restart.nc';
   assimilation_period_days     = 1,
   assimilation_period_seconds  = 0,
   model_perturbation_amplitude = 0.2,
   output_state_vector          = .true.,
   calendar                     = 'Gregorian',
   debug                        = 0
/


&dart_to_ncommas_nml
   dart_to_ncommas_input_file = 'dart_restart',
   advance_time_present   = .false.
/

dart_to_ncommas_nml and model_nml are always read from a file called input.nml. The full description of the model_nml namelist is documented in the NCOMMAS model_mod.

Item

Type

Description

dart_to_ncommas_input_file

character(len=128)

The name of the DART file containing the model state to insert into the ncommas restart file.

advance_time_present

logical

If you are converting a DART initial conditions or restart file this should be .false.; these files have a single timestamp describing the valid time of the model state. If .true. TWO timestamps are expected to be the DART file header. In this case, a namelist for ncommas (called ncommas_in.DART) is created that contains the &time_manager_nml settings appropriate to advance ncommas to the time requested by DART.

ncommas_vars_nml is always read from a file called ncommas_vars.nml.

Item

Type

Description

ncommas_state_variables

character(len=NF90_MAX_NAME) :: dimension(160)

The list of variable names in the NCOMMAS restart file to use to create the DART state vector and their corresponding DART kind.

 

&ncommas_vars_nml
   ncommas_state_variables = 'U',   'QTY_U_WIND_COMPONENT',
                             'V',   'QTY_V_WIND_COMPONENT',
                             'W',   'QTY_VERTICAL_VELOCITY',
                             'TH',  'QTY_POTENTIAL_TEMPERATURE',
                             'DBZ', 'QTY_RADAR_REFLECTIVITY',
                             'WZ',  'QTY_VERTICAL_VORTICITY',
                             'PI',  'QTY_EXNER_FUNCTION',
                             'QV',  'QTY_VAPOR_MIXING_RATIO',
                             'QC',  'QTY_CLOUDWATER_MIXING_RATIO',
                             'QR',  'QTY_RAINWATER_MIXING_RATIO',
                             'QI',  'QTY_ICE_MIXING_RATIO',
                             'QS',  'QTY_SNOW_MIXING_RATIO',
                             'QH',  'QTY_GRAUPEL_MIXING_RATIO'
  /

Modules used

assim_model_mod
location_mod
model_mod
null_mpi_utilities_mod
obs_kind_mod
random_seq_mod
time_manager_mod
types_mod
utilities_mod

Files read

  • DART initial conditions/restart file; e.g. filter_ic

  • DART namelist file; input.nml

  • ncommas namelist file; ncommas_vars.nml

  • ncommas restart file ncommas_restart.nc

Files written

  • ncommas restart file; ncommas_restart.nc

  • ncommas namelist file; ncommas_in.DART

References

none