CLM5-DART Tutorial

Introduction

This tutorial describes how to set up a simple assimilation using CLM5-DART. The expectation is that the user is very familiar with running CLM off-line and thus the tutorial focuses upon the specific aspects of integrating CLM with DART. Once completed, the goal is that the user should be familar enough with the concepts of CLM5-DART in order to design an assimilation for their own research interests.

This tutorial was assembled to be compatible with CLM5.0.34 as part of CESM (release-cesm2.2.01) or CTSM (release-cesm2.2.03) and the latest release on the main branch of the the DART repository. Other combinations of CLM and DART (prior to DART version 9.13.0) may not be compatible with this tutorial. Currently, only the CTSM (release-cesm2.2.03) is fully compatible with Derecho. If you are using other tags you may need to modify the external scripting to be compatible with Derecho.

It is not recommended to use this tutorial without prior experience with running and understanding CLM. If new to CLM we recommend you attend a CLM tutorial or review the CLM documentation including the Technical Description, User Guide, and use the CESM User Forum for CLM-specific assistance.

If you are new to DART, we recommend that you become familiar by first working through the DART Tutorial and then understanding the DART getting started documentation.

This CLM5-DART tutorial is based on a simple example in which we describe how to:

  1. set up the software

  2. review concepts of assimilation

  3. provide a specific example of how CLM and DART interact in an assimilation framework

If you wish to move beyond this tutorial and address a unique/new research question be prepared to invest a significant amount of time to modify the CLM-DART setup. In general, a CLM-DART simulation that is running without errors, does not mean it has been optimized for performance. Optimal performance requires the evaluation of assimilation diagnostics (e.g. observation acceptance rate, RMSE and bias between modeled and observed properties) and making additional modifications to the setup scripts. Examples of setup modifications include changes to localization, inflation, observations that are assimilated, updated model state variables, assimilation time window, assimilation frequency, and the model and observation grid resolution.

We encourage users to complete the tutorial and then modify CLM-DART to pursue their own research questions. We have comprehensive and searchable documentation, with trained and experienced staff that can help troubleshoot issues (dart@ucar.edu).

Tutorial Overview

The tutorial is a simplified global simulation that assimilates daily observations for up to a maximum of 10 days. A total of 5 observations are distributed across the globe that includes observations of leaf area, biomass, snow cover, and soil temperature. The observations are ‘synthetic’ meaning they have been generated from the output of a separate CLM simulation with random error added. Synthetic observations are generally easier to assimilate than real-world observations because they remove systemic differences between the model and observations. This assimilation uses a 5-member ensemble (i.e. 5 CLM simulations run simultaneously). An ensemble is required within Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) data assimilation to calculate the modeled covariance amongst the state variables in CLM. The covariance amongst the CLM state variables dictates how the CLM model state is updated during the assimilation step given a set of observations. The beginning of the assimilation starts from near present day (January-2011) and is initalized in ‘hybrid’ mode from a set of CLM restart files generated from a previous CLM 5-member ensemble simulation. The atmospheric forcing used for the assimilation comes from the Community Atmospheric Model (CAM) reanalysis (ds199.1 and ds345.0). This reanalysis atmospheric data includes 80 total ensemble members in which the across-member variation represents atmospheric uncertainty. We use 5 different ensemble members from the CAM6 reanalysis to generate spread within this CLM5-DART tutorial simulation.

Note

This CLM5-DART tutorial has been simplified to reduce run-time and computational expense. For research applications an assimilation is typically run for many model months/years. In addition a 5-member ensemble is generally too small to properly sample model uncertainty and we recommend 80, but no less than 40 ensemble members for research applications.

The goal of this tutorial is to demonstrate how CLM5 and DART interact to perform data assimilation to provide an observation-constrained simulation of CLM. This requires setting numerous namelist/input values that control the configuration of CLM and DART setup.

After running this tutorial, you should be able to understand the major steps involved in setting up your own data assimilation experiments. However, you will need to do additional work to customize the CLM5-DART system for your particular research needs. For example, this tutorial provides both the initial conditions and observation sequence files to simplify the process and are specific to the tutorial, whereas you will need to generate custom initial conditions and observation sequence files for your own work.

Important

We have provided tutorial instructions for the NSF NCAR supercomputer Derecho, however, if using your own machine you will need to customize the setup scripts in order to properly compile DART (see Step 4: Compiling DART). These system-specific setup steps may take a good deal of effort, especially if you are unfamiliar with details such as compilers, MPI, NetCDF libraries, batch submission systems etc. To perform this tutorial we assume the user is comfortable with LINUX operating systems as well as using text editors (e.g. vi, nedit, emacs) to edit the CLM5-DART setup scripts and namelist files etc.

Other required files to run the tutorial include the meteorology (Step 5), reference case (Step 6), and observation files (Step 7). These are all readily available if you are using Derecho. If you are using your own machine you need use the following links to download these files directly:

  1. CAM6 Reanalysis Meteorology, Year 2011, ensemble members 1-5 for three separate file types: f.e21.FHIST_BGC.f09_025.CAM6assim.011.cpl_000{1-5}.ha2x3h.2011.nc f.e21.FHIST_BGC.f09_025.CAM6assim.011.cpl_000{1-5}.ha2x1hi.2011.nc f.e21.FHIST_BGC.f09_025.CAM6assim.011.cpl_000{1-5}.ha2x1h.2011.nc

  2. Reference Case and Observations,

    clm5_dart_tutorial_2022_03_01.tar.gz

Step 1: Download CLM5

CLM is continually being updated by the model developer and user community consisting of both NSF NCAR and university scientists and researchers. In contrast, DART is maintained by a relatively small group that supports numerous earth system models (20+) including CLM. Therefore the DART team focuses on only supporting official released versions of CLM. This documentation and scripting was tested using the CESM tag release-cesm2.2.0 and release-cesm2.2.03 following the download instructions here.

Although the DART code may work with more recent versions of CESM (CLM) we recommend checking out release-cesm2.2.03 which is compatible with both DART and Derecho

git clone https://github.com/ESCOMP/CTSM.git cesm_dart
cd cesm_dart
git checkout release-cesm2.2.03
./manage_externals/checkout_externals

Adding CLM5 SourceMods

Some minor modifications have to be made to the CLM5 source code in order to be run with DART. Most importantly, these include skipping several balance checks in CLM5 for the time step immediately after the assimilation update step. These sourcecode modifications are brought in through the SourceMod mechanism in CLM where modifications overwrite the template sourcecode during the compilation step. The SourceMods are included within the DART package which is downloaded in Step 2.

For more information on the SourceMods see the main CLM-DART documentation.

Compiling CLM5

Compiling CLM5 on the NSF NCAR machine Derecho is straightforward because the run and build environment settings are already defined within the config_machines.xml file located within the CESM installation: <cesmroot>/cime/config/cesm/machines. If you are using your own machine please follow the porting instructions located here. When performing a CLM5-DART assimilation run, the compiling step for CLM5 occurs within the CLM5_setup_assimilation script described later within this tutorial.

Step 2: Download DART

The tutorial material is available within the most recent release of the DART repository on the main branch.

cd /glade/work/$USER/
git clone https://github.com/NCAR/DART.git
cd DART

Step 3: Navigating DART Scripts

Below is a table of the key CLM5-DART setup scripts that include the settings required to perform an assimilation run. All scripts are located at path DART/models/clm/shell_scripts/cesm2_2/ with the exception of input.nml which is located at DART/models/clm/work/.

You will be asked to locate, edit, and execute these scripts during the tutorial and they are critical to customizing the assimilation run. Given their importance, we introduce them right away.

For additional description of the CLM5-DART scripts and concepts please visit the main CLM-DART documentation In general, feel free to supplement this tutorial with the main CLM5-DART documentation. In some cases it will provide more detailed information than in this tutorial. If a concept is unclear we recommend using the search bar at the top of this page.

Key CLM5-DART scripts

Description

CLM5_setup_assimilation

Main setup script that creates a CLM5-DART assimilation case. This script sets up case, run and archive directories and stages the necessary files to the run directory to create a hybrid run. It uses traditional commands create_newcase, case.setup, preview_namelists and case.build included as part of the CESM package.

DART_params.csh

The companion script to CLM5_setup_assimilation that defines important case settings for CLM and DART. The majority of case setting edits occur within this script.

CESM_DART_config

Once the case is created, this script turns ‘on’ assimilation by providing links between the CLM and DART code. Converts a ‘free’ run into an assimilation run.

assimilate.csh

This script is executed during the assimilation case run-time. It orchestrates communication between CLM and DART. After the CLM forecast step is complete, it calls upon the DART executables to relay the CLM files (restart, history) to DART and executes the filter step to update the CLM state variable. These updated files are then reinserted into the restart file for the next CLM forecast step.

input.nml

Contains DART specific namelist settings such as DA type, inflation, localization, outlier threshold etc.

Step 4: Compiling DART

Similar to CLM, it is necessary to compile the DART code before an assimilation can be performed. The DART code includes a variety of build template scripts that provide the appropriate compiler and library settings depending upon your system environment. This is an example of the system environment for Derecho (e.g. module list), which was used to perform this tutorial:

Currently Loaded Modules:
  1) ncarenv/23.06 (S)   2) intel/19.0.5   3) ncarcompilers/1.0.0   4) hdf5/1.12.2   5) netcdf/4.9.2

Please note in this example we used the intel fortran compiler with netcdf libraries to support the netcdf file format and the mpt libraries to support the mpi tasks.

Below are instructions on how to modify the DART template script mkmf_template to properly compile DART on Derecho:

cd DART/build_templates
cp mkmf.template.intel.linux mkmf.template

Confirm the mkmf_template has the following settings:

MPIFC = mpif90
MPILD = mpif90
FC = ifort
LD = ifort
...
...
INCS = -I$(NETCDF)/include
LIBS = -L$(NETCDF)/lib -lnetcdff -lnetcdf
FFLAGS  = -O -assume buffered_io $(INCS)
LDFLAGS = $(FFLAGS) $(LIBS)

Next we will test to make sure the DART scripts can be run correctly, by compiling and executing the preprocess script. The preprocess script must be run before the core DART code is compiled because it writes the source code that supports the observations. This provides the necessary support for the specific observations that we wish to assimilate into CLM. For more information see the preprocess documentation.

First make sure the list of obs_def and obs_quantity module source codes are contained in the &preprocess_nml namelist within the input.nml.

cd DART/models/clm/work
vi input.nml

Note

We use the vi editor within the tutorial instructions, but we recommend that you use the text editor you are most comfortable with. To close the vi editor follow these instructions from stackoverflow.

This example uses namelist setting that specifically loads obs_def and obs_quantity commonly used for land DA, including models like CLM. Confirm the &preprocess_nml settings are as follows:

&preprocess_nml
   input_obs_qty_mod_file  = '../../../assimilation_code/modules/observations/DEFAULT_obs_kind_mod.F90'
   output_obs_qty_mod_file = '../../../assimilation_code/modules/observations/obs_kind_mod.f90'
   input_obs_def_mod_file  = '../../../observations/forward_operators/DEFAULT_obs_def_mod.F90'
   output_obs_def_mod_file = '../../../observations/forward_operators/obs_def_mod.f90'
   obs_type_files          = '../../../observations/forward_operators/obs_def_land_mod.f90',
                             '../../../observations/forward_operators/obs_def_tower_mod.f90',
                             '../../../observations/forward_operators/obs_def_COSMOS_mod.f90'
   quantity_files          = '../../../assimilation_code/modules/observations/land_quantities_mod.f90',
                             '../../../assimilation_code/modules/observations/space_quantities_mod.f90'
                             '../../../assimilation_code/modules/observations/atmosphere_quantities_mod.f90'
   /

Next run quickbuild.sh to build and run preprocess and build the dart exectuables:

./quickbuild.sh

Confirm the new source code has been generated for DART/observations/forward_operators/obs_def_mod.f90 and DART/assimilation_code/modules/observations/obs_kind_mod.f90

Step 5: Setting up the atmospheric forcing

A requirement for Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) type DA approaches is to generate multiple model simulations (i.e. a model ensemble) that quantifies 1) state variable uncertainty and 2) correlation between state variables. Given the sensitivity of CLM to atmospheric conditions an established method to generate multi-instance CLM simulations is through weather reanalysis data generated from a CAM-DART assimilation. These CAM-DART reanalyses are available from 1997-2010 ds199.1, and 2011-2020 ds345.0.

For this tutorial we will use the January 2011 CAM6 reanalysis (ds345.0) only. To make sure the scripts can locate the weather data first make sure the DART_params.csh variable dartroot is set to the path of your DART installation. For example, if you have a Derecho account and you followed the DART cloning instructions in Step 2 above your dartroot variable will be: /<your Derecho work directory>/DART. Make sure you update the default dartroot as shown below.

setenv dartroot          /glade/work/${USER}/DART

Next confirm within the CLM5_setup_assimilation script that the path (${SOURCEDIR}/${STREAMFILE_*}) to all four of your atmospheric stream file templates (e.g. datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.Solar*) is correct. In particular make sure the SOURCEDIR variable is set correctly below:

set STREAMFILE_SOLAR        = datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.Solar_single_year
set STREAMFILE_STATE1HR     = datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.State1hr_single_year
set STREAMFILE_STATE3HR     = datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.State3hr_single_year
set STREAMFILE_NONSOLARFLUX = datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.nonSolarFlux_single_year
...
...
# Create stream files for each ensemble member
set SOURCEDIR = ${dartroot}/models/clm/shell_scripts/cesm2_2
${COPY} ${SOURCEDIR}/${STREAMFILE_SOLAR}         user_${FILE1} || exit 5
${COPY} ${SOURCEDIR}/${STREAMFILE_STATE1HR}      user_${FILE2} || exit 5
${COPY} ${SOURCEDIR}/${STREAMFILE_STATE3HR}      user_${FILE3} || exit 5
${COPY} ${SOURCEDIR}/${STREAMFILE_NONSOLARFLUX}  user_${FILE4} || exit 5

Next, edit each of your atmospheric stream file templates to make sure the filePath within domainInfo and fieldInfo below is set correctly to reference the CAM6 reanalysis file. The example below is for datm.streams.txt.CPLHISTForcing.nonSolarFlux_single_year. Repeat this for all four of the template stream files including for Solar, State1hr and State3hr.

<domainInfo>
     <variableNames>
        time          time
        doma_lon      lon
        doma_lat      lat
        doma_area     area
        doma_mask     mask
     </variableNames>
     <filePath>
        /glade/campaign/collections/rda/data/ds345.0/cpl_unzipped/NINST
     </filePath>
     <fileNames>
        f.e21.FHIST_BGC.f09_025.CAM6assim.011.cpl_NINST.ha2x3h.RUNYEAR.nc
     </fileNames>
  </domainInfo>
  ...
  ...
  ...
  <fieldInfo>
     <variableNames>
        a2x3h_Faxa_rainc     rainc
        a2x3h_Faxa_rainl     rainl
        a2x3h_Faxa_snowc     snowc
        a2x3h_Faxa_snowl     snowl
        a2x3h_Faxa_lwdn      lwdn
     </variableNames>
     <filePath>
          /glade/campaign/collections/rda/data/ds345.0/cpl_unzipped/NINST
     </filePath>
     <offset>
        1800
     </offset>
     <fileNames>
        f.e21.FHIST_BGC.f09_025.CAM6assim.011.cpl_NINST.ha2x3h.RUNYEAR.nc
     </fileNames>
  </fieldInfo>

Selected variables within atmospheric stream file

Description

filePath

Directory of CAM6 reanalysis file. For tutorial, this only includes year 2011, with ensemble members 1-5. During execution of CLM5_setup_assimilation the text NINST is replaced with ensemble member number 0001-0005. The ensemble member number is set through the num_instances variable located in DART_params.csh.

fileNames

The CAM6 reanalysis file name. For the tutorial, this only includes year 2011, with ensemble members 1-5. The NINST variable is replaced in the same way as described above for filepath. For this tutorial the RUNYEAR variable will be replaced by 2011. The RUNYEAR variable is set through stream_year_first located within DART_params.csh.

variableNames

Meteorology variables within CAM6 reanalysis. First column is variable name within netCDF reanalysis file, whereas the second column is the meteorology variable name recognized by CLM.

Finally, edit the DART_params.csh file such that the RUNYEAR and NINST variables within the atmospheric stream templates are replaced with the appropriate year and ensemble member. To do this confirm the settings within DART_params.csh are as follows:

setenv num_instances  5

 ..
 ..

setenv stream_year_align 2011
setenv stream_year_first 2011
setenv stream_year_last  2011

Step 6: Setting up the initial conditions for land earth system properties

The initial conditions for the assimilation run are prescribed (all state variables from the top of vegetation canopy to subsurface bedrock) by a previous 5-member ensemble run (Case: clm5.0.06_f09_80) that used the same CAM6 reanalysis to generate initial spread between ensemble members. This is sometimes referred to as an ensemble ‘spinup’. This ensemble spinup was run for 10 years to generate sufficient spread amongst ensemble members for this tutorial.

Note

The proper ensemble spinup time depends upon the specific research application. In general, the goal is to allow the differences in meterological forcing to induce changes within the CLM variables that you plan to adjust during the DART update step. CLM variables that have relatively quick response to atmospheric forcing (e.g. leaf area, shallow-depth soil variables) require less spinup time. However, other CLM variables take longer to equilibrate to atmospheric forcing (e.g. biomass, soil carbon).

This initial ensemble spinup was run with resolution f09_09_mg17 (0.9x1.25 grid resolution) with compset 2000_DATM%GSWP3v1_CLM50%BGC-CROP_SICE_SOCN_MOSART_SGLC_SWAV (CESM run with only land and river components active). The starting point of the assimilation is run in CLM ‘hybrid’ mode which allows the starting date of the assimilaton to be different than the reference case, and loosens the requirements of the system state. The tradeoff is that restarting in hybrid mode does not provide bit-by-bit reproducible simulations.

For the tutorial, set the DART_parms.csh variables such that the end of the ensemble spinup (at time 1-1-2011) are used as the initial conditions for the assimilation:

setenv refcase      clm5.0.06_f09_80
setenv refyear      2011
setenv refmon       01
setenv refday       01
setenv reftod       00000
...
...
setenv stagedir /glade/campaign/cisl/dares/glade-p-dares-Oct2023/RDA_strawman/CESM_ensembles/CLM/CLM5BGC-Crop/ctsm_${reftimestamp}
...
...
setenv start_year    2011
setenv start_month   01
setenv start_day     01
setenv start_tod     00000

Important variables to set initial conditions

Description

refcase

The reference casename from the spinup ensemble that serves as the starting conditions for the assimilation.

refyear, refmon, refday reftod

The year, month, day and time of day of the reference case that the assimilation will start from.

stagedir

The directory location of the reference case files.

Step 7: Setting up the observations to be assimilated

In ‘Step 4: Compiling DART’ we have already completed an important step by executing preprocess which generates source code (obs_def_mod.f90, obs_kind_mod.f90) that supports the assimilation of observations used for this tutorial. In this step, we compile these observation definitions in to the DART executables. The observations are read into the assimilation through an observation sequence file whose format is described here.

First confirm that the baseobsdir variable within DART_params.csh is pointed to the directory where the observation sequence files are located. In Derecho they are located in the directory as:

setenv baseobsdir             /glade/campaign/cisl/dares/glade-p-dares-Oct2023/Observations/land

In this tutorial we have several observation types that are to be assimilated, including SOIL_TEMPERATURE, MODIS_SNOWCOVER_FRAC, MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX and BIOMASS. To enable the assimilation of these observations types they must be included within the &obs_kind_nml within the input.nml file as:

&obs_kind_nml
  assimilate_these_obs_types = 'SOIL_TEMPERATURE',
                               'MODIS_SNOWCOVER_FRAC',
                               'MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX',
                               'BIOMASS',
  evaluate_these_obs_types   = 'null'
  /

Below is an example of a single observation (leaf area index) within an observation sequence file used within this tutorial (obs_seq.2011-01-02-00000):

OBS            3
6.00864688253571
5.44649167346675
0.000000000000000E+000

obdef
loc3d
   5.235987755982989         0.000000000000000        -888888.0000000000     -2
kind
        23
   0     149750
0.200000000000000

Below is the same portion of the file as above, but with the variable names:

<Observation sequence number>
<Observation Value>
<True Observation Value>
<Observation Quality Control>

obdef
loc3d
   <longitude>    <latitude>     <vertical level>     <vertical code>
kind
  <observation quantity number>
     <seconds>    <days>
<Observation error variance>

Observation Sequence File Variable

Description

observation sequence number

The chronological order of the observation within the observation sequence file. This determines the order in which the observation is assimilated by DART for a given time step.

observation value

The actual observation value that the DART filter step uses to update the CLM model. This is derived from the true observation value generated from CLM model output with uncertainty added.

true observation value

The observation generated from CLM output. In this case the observation was generated as part of a perfect model experiment (OSSE; Observing System Simulation Experiment), thus the ‘true’ value is known.

observation quality control

The quality control value provided from the data provider. This can be used as a filter in which to exclude low quality observations from the assimilation.

longitude, latitude

Horizontal spatial location of the observation in radians

level, vertical level type code

Vertical observation location in units defined by vertical level type

observation type number

The DART observation type assigned to the obervation type (e.g. MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX (23) –> QTY_LEAF_AREA_INDEX)

second, days

Time of the observations in reference to Jan 1, 1601

observation error variance

Uncertainty of the observation Value

Now that we have set both the path to the observation sequence files, and the types of observations to be assimilated, confirm the quality control settings within the &quality_control_nml of the input.nml file are as follows:

&quality_control_nml
   input_qc_threshold = 1.0
   outlier_threshold  = 3.0
   /

Quality Control Namelist

Description

input_qc_threshold

The quality control value that is provided from the observation product. Any value above this threshold will cause the observation to be rejected and ignored during the assimilation step.

outlier threshold

The observation is rejected if: (prior mean - observation) > (expected difference x outlier threshold). The prior mean is is calculated from the CLM model ensemble mean, and the expected difference is the square root of the sum of the square uncertainty of the prior mean and observation uncertainty.

These quality control settings do not play a role in this tutorial because we are using synthetic observations which are, by design, very close to the model output. Thus, in this tutorial example, systematic biases between the model and observations are removed. However, in the case of real observations, it is common for large systemic differences to occur between the model and observations either because 1) structural/parametric error exists within the model or 2) model or observation uncertainty is underestimated. In these cases it is beneficial to reject observations to promote a stable simulation and prevent the model from entering into unrealistic state space.

Note

This tutorial already provides properly formatted synthetic observations for the user, however, when using ‘real’ observations for research applications DART provides observation converters. Observation converters are scripts that convert the various data product formats into the observation sequence file format required by the DART code. Observations converters most relevant for land DA and the CLM model include those for leaf area, flux data, snow, and soil moisture here and here. Even if an observation converter is not available for a particular data product, it is generally straightforward to modify them for your specific application.

Step 8: Setting up the DART and CLM states

Defining the DART state space is a critical part of the assimilation setup process. This serves two purposes, first, it defines which model variables are used in the forward operator. The forward operator is defined as any operation that converts from model space to observation space to create the ‘expected observation’. The mismatch between the true and expected observation forms the foundation of the model update in the DART filter step.

In this tutorial, observations of SOIL_TEMPERATURE, MODIS_SNOWCOVER_FRAC, MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX, and BIOMASS are supported by specific clm variables. See the table below which defines the dependency of each DART observation type upon specific DART quantities required for the forward operator. We also include the CLM variables that serve as the DART quantities for this tutorial:

DART Observation Type

DART Observation Quantities

CLM variables

SOIL_TEMPERATURE

QTY_SOIL_TEMPERATURE QTY_TEMPERATURE

TSOI T_SOISNO

MODIS_SNOWCOVER_FRAC

QTY_SNOWCOVER_FRAC

frac_sno

MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX

QTY_LEAF_AREA_INDEX

TLAI

BIOMASS

QTY_LEAF_CARBON QTY_LIVE_STEM_CARBON QTY_DEAD_STEM_CARBON

leafc livestemc deadstemc

Note

For this tutorial example most of the observation types rely on a single quantity (and CLM variable) to calculate the expected observation. For these the CLM variable is spatially interpolated to best match the location of the observation. The BIOMASS observation type is an exception in which 3 quantities are required to calculate the expected observation. In that case the sum of the CLM variables of leaf, live stem and structural (dead) carbon represents the biomass observation.

Second, the DART state space also defines which portion of the CLM model state is updated by DART. In DA terminology, limiting the influence of the observations to a subset of the CLM model state is known as ‘localization’ which is discussed more fully in Step 9. In theory the complete CLM model state may be updated based on the relationship with the observations. In practice, a smaller subset of model state variables, that have a close physical relationship with the observations, are included in the DART state space. In this tutorial, for example, we limit the update to CLM variables most closely related to biomass, leaf area, soil temperature and snow. Modify the &model_nml within input.nml as below:

&model_nml
  ...
  ...
  clm_variables  = 'leafc',       'QTY_LEAF_CARBON',            '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'frac_sno',    'QTY_SNOWCOVER_FRAC',         '0.0', '1.', 'restart' , 'NO_COPY_BACK',
                   'SNOW_DEPTH',  'QTY_SNOW_THICKNESS',         '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'NO_COPY_BACK',
                   'H2OSOI_LIQ',  'QTY_SOIL_LIQUID_WATER',      '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'H2OSOI_ICE',  'QTY_SOIL_ICE',               '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'T_SOISNO',    'QTY_TEMPERATURE',            '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'livestemc',   'QTY_LIVE_STEM_CARBON',       '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'deadstemc',   'QTY_DEAD_STEM_CARBON',       '0.0', 'NA', 'restart' , 'UPDATE',
                   'TLAI',        'QTY_LEAF_AREA_INDEX',        '0.0', 'NA', 'vector'  , 'NO_COPY_BACK',
                   'TSOI',        'QTY_SOIL_TEMPERATURE',       'NA' , 'NA', 'history' , 'NO_COPY_BACK'
  /

The table below provides a description for each of the columns for clm_variables within &model_nml.

Column

Description

1

The CLM variable name as it appears in the CLM netCDF file.

2

The corresponding DART QUANTITY.

3

Minimum value of the posterior.
If set to ‘NA’ there is no minimum value.
The DART diagnostic files will not reflect this value, but
the file used to restart CLM will.

4

Maximum value of the posterior.
If set to ‘NA’ there is no maximum value.
The DART diagnostic files will not reflect this value, but
the file used to restart CLM will.

5

Specifies which file should be used to obtain the variable.
'restart' => clm_restart_filename
'history' => clm_history_filename
'vector' => clm_vector_history_filename

6

Should filter update the variable in the specified file.
'UPDATE' => the variable is updated.
'NO_COPY_BACK' => the variable remains unchanged.

There are important distinctions about the clm_variables as described above. First, any clm variable whether it is a restart, history or vector file can be used as a forward operator to calculate the expected observation. Also if the 6th column is defined as UPDATE, then that variable is updated during the filter step regardless of the CLM variable type. However, in order for the update step to have a permanent effect upon the evolution of the CLM model state, the update must be applied to a prognostic variable in CLM – which is always the restart file. Updates to restart file variables alters the file thus changing the initial conditions for the next time step. The CLM history and vector files, on the other hand, are diagnostic variables with no impact on the evolution of the model state.

A second important distinction amongst clm_variables is that the restart file state variables are automatically generated after each CLM simulation time step, thus are readily available to include within the DART state. In contrast, the history or vector file variables must be manually generated through the user_nl_clm file within CLM. This is generated within the portion of the CLM5_setup_assimilation script as shown below. Modify this portion of the CLM5_setup_assimilation script so that it appears as follows:

...
...
echo "hist_empty_htapes = .true."                                      >> ${fname}
echo "hist_fincl1 = 'NEP','H2OSOI','TSOI','EFLX_LH_TOT','TLAI'"        >> ${fname}
echo "hist_fincl2 = 'NEP','FSH','EFLX_LH_TOT_R','GPP'"                 >> ${fname}
echo "hist_fincl3 = 'NEE','H2OSNO','TLAI','TWS','SOILC_vr','LEAFN'"    >> ${fname}
echo "hist_nhtfrq = -$stop_n,1,-$stop_n"                               >> ${fname}
echo "hist_mfilt  = 1,$h1nsteps,1"                                     >> ${fname}
echo "hist_avgflag_pertape = 'A','A','I'"                              >> ${fname}
echo "hist_dov2xy = .true.,.true.,.false."                             >> ${fname}
echo "hist_type1d_pertape = ' ',' ',' '"                               >> ${fname}

The hist_fincl setting generates history files (fincl1->h0; fincl2->h1; fincl3->h2) for each of the clm variables as defined above. The hist_dov2xy setting determines whether the history file is output in structured gridded format (.true.) or in unstructured, vector history format (.false.). Most of the history files variables in this example are provided just for illustration, however, the tutorial requires that the TLAI variable is output in vector history format.

The restart, history and vector files define domains 1, 2 and 3 respectively within DART. The restart domain (domain 1) must always be defined, however domains 2 and 3 are optional. In this tutorial example all 3 domains are required, where domain 2 corresponds to the h0 history file, and domain 3 corresponds with the h2 history files.

Step 9: Set the spatial localization

Localization is the term used to restrict the portion of the state to regions related to the observation. Step 8 is a type of localization in that it restricts the state update to a subset of CLM variables. Here, we further restrict the influence of the observation to the state space most nearly physically collocated with the observation. The spatial localization is set through the the assim_tools_nml, cov_cutoff_nml and location_nml settings witin input.nml as:

# cutoff of 0.03 (radians) is about 200km
&assim_tools_nml
   filter_kind                     = 1
   cutoff                          = 0.05
&cov_cutoff_nml
  select_localization = 1
  /
&location_nml
   horiz_dist_only             = .true.

Localization namelist variable

Description

cutoff

Value (radians) of the half-width of the localization radius. At 2* cutoff distance between observation and model state, the observation has no impact on state.

select_localization

Defines a function that determines the decreasing impact an observation has on the model state. Value of 1 is the Gaspari-Cohn function.

horiz_dist_only

If .true. localization applied only horizontally. If .false. localization also applied in vertical.

In some research applications (not this tutorial) it may also be important to localize in the vertical direction. For land modeling this could be important for soil carbon or soil moisture variables which typically only have observations near the land surface, whereas the model state is distributed in layers well below the surface. For vertical localization the horiz_dist_only must be set to .false. For more information on localization see assim_tools_mod.

Step 10: Set the Inflation

Generating and maintaining ensemble spread during the assimilation allows for the covariance to be calculated between model state variables (that we want to adjust) and the expected observation. The strength of the covariance determines the model update. For CLM-DART assimilations the ensemble spread is generated through a boundary condition: the atmospheric forcing as described in Step 5. However, because the number of ensemble members is limited and boundary condition uncertainty is only one source of model uncertainty, the true ensemble spread is undersampled. To help compensate for this we employ inflation during the assimilation which changes the spread of the ensemble without changing the ensemble mean. The inflation algorithm computes the ensemble mean and standard deviation for each variable in the state vector in turn, and then moves the member’s values away from the mean in such a way that the mean remains unchanged.

Although inflation was originally designed to account for ensemble sampling errors, it has also been demonstrated to help address systemic errors between models and observations as well. More information on inflation can be found here.

In this tutorial we implement a time and space varying inflation (inflation flavor 5: enhanced spatial-varying; inverse gamma) such that the inflation becomes an added state property which is updated during each assimilation step similar to CLM state variables. The inflation state properties include both a mean and standard deviation. The mean value determines how much spread is added across the ensemble (spread is generated when mean > 1). The standard deviation defines the certainty of the mean inflation value, thus a small value indicates high certainty and slow evolution of the mean with time. Conversely a high standard deviation indicates low certainty and faster evolution of the inflation mean with time.

Modify the inflation settings within input.nml for the &filter_nml and the &fill_inflation_restart_nml as follows:

Note

The &filter_nml has two columns, where column 1 is for prior inflation and column 2 is for posterior inflation. We only use prior inflation for this tutorial, thus inf_flavor=0 (no inflation) for column 2.

&filter_nml

  ...
  ...
  ...
  inf_flavor                  = 5,                       0
  inf_initial_from_restart    = .true.,                 .false.
  inf_sd_initial_from_restart = .true.,                 .false.
  inf_deterministic           = .true.,                  .true.
  inf_initial                 = 1.0,                     1.0
  inf_lower_bound             = 0.0,                     1.0
  inf_upper_bound             = 20.0,                   20.0
  inf_damping                 = 0.9,                     0.9
  inf_sd_initial              = 0.6,                     0.6
  inf_sd_lower_bound          = 0.6,                     0.6
  inf_sd_max_change           = 1.05,                    1.05
&fill_inflation_restart_nml
   write_prior_inf   = .true.
   prior_inf_mean    = 1.00
   prior_inf_sd      = 0.6
   ...
   ...

Inflation namelist variable

Description

inf_flavor

The inflation algorithm type as described below:

  • 0: No inflation (Prior and/or Posterior) and all other inflation variables are ignored

  • 2: Spatially-varying state space inflation (gaussian)

  • 3: Spatially-uniform state space inflation (gaussian)

  • 4: Relaxation To Prior Spread (Posterior inflation only)

  • 5: Enhanced Spatially-varying state space inflation (inverse gamma)

inf_initial_from_restart

If .true. will read inflation settings from file named input_{prior,post}inf_mean.nc. If .false. will take inflation settings from &filter_nml.

inf_sd_initial_from_restart

If .true. will read inflation settings from file named input_{prior,post}inf_sd.nc. If .false. will take inflation settings from &filter_nml.

inf_deterministic

If .true. inflation is determinstic, if .false. inflation is stochastic

inf_initial

Initial value of inflation if not read from restart file

inf_lower_bound

Lower bound of inflation mean value

inf_upper_bound

Upper bound of inflation mean value

inf_damping

Damping factor for inflation mean values. The difference between the current inflation value and 1.0 is multiplied by this factor and added to 1.0 to provide the next inflation mean. An inf_damping = 0 turns inflation off, and inf_damping =1 turns damping off.

inf_sd_initial

Initial value of inflation standard deviation if not read from restart file. If ≤ 0, do not update the inflation values, so they are time-constant. If positive, the inflation values will adapt through time.

inf_sd_lower_bound

Lower bound for inflation standard deviation. If using a negative value for inf_sd_initial this should also be negative to preserve the setting.

inf_sd_max_change

For inf_flavor 5 (enhanced inflation), controls the maximum change of the inflation standard deviation when adapting for the next assimilation cycle. The value should be between 1.0 and 2.0. 1.0 prevents any changes, while 2.0 allows 100% change. For the enhanced inflation option, if the standard deviation initial value is equal to the standard deviation lower bound, the standard deviation will not adapt in time.

write_prior_inf

Setting this to .TRUE. enables fill_inflation_restart and writes a spatially uniform prior inflation mean and standard deviation files:input_priorinf_mean.nc input_priorinf_sd.nc for the first time-step only.

prior_inf_mean

Initial value of prior inflation mean when write_prior_inf = .TRUE.

prior_inf_sd

Initial value of prior inflation standard deviation when write_prior_inf = .TRUE.

It is also important to confirm that the domains defined in Step 8 (restart, history, vector) are the same as what is defined in the &fill_inflation_restart_nml and &filter_nml namelist settings. Confirm the input and output file list account for all 3 domains as:

&filter_nml
   input_state_file_list    = 'restart_files.txt',
                              'history_files.txt',
                              'vector_files.txt'
   output_state_file_list   = 'restart_files.txt',
                              'history_files.txt',
                              'vector_files.txt'
&fill_inflation_restart_nml
  input_state_files = 'clm_restart.nc','clm_history.nc','clm_vector_history.nc'
  single_file       = .false.

Important

The input_state_file_list, output_state_file_list and input_state_files must match the domains that were defined in Step 8.

The assimilate.csh script assigns the CLM file that defines each domain. In this tutorial the restart, history and vector domains are defined by the .r., .h0. and .h2. files respectively. *We show the portions of the assimilate.csh script below for illustration purposes only. Do not modify these lines for the tutorial.*

The domains are set within the Block 4: DART INFLATION portion of the script as:

set     LND_RESTART_FILENAME = ${CASE}.clm2_0001.r.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc
set     LND_HISTORY_FILENAME = ${CASE}.clm2_0001.h0.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc
set LND_VEC_HISTORY_FILENAME = ${CASE}.clm2_0001.h2.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc

and set again during the Block 5: REQUIRED DART namelist settings in prepration for the filter step as:

ls -1         clm2_*.r.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc  >! restart_files.txt
ls -1 ${CASE}.clm2_*.h0.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc >! history_files.txt
ls -1 ${CASE}.clm2_*.h2.${LND_DATE_EXT}.nc >! vector_files.txt

Step 11: Complete the Assimilation Setup

A few setup steps remain before the assimilation case can be executed. First, the complete list of DART executables must be generated. At this point you should have already customized your mkmf.template and tested your local build environment in Step 4. In this step, you must compile the rest of the required DART scripts to perform the assimilation as follows:

cd DART/models/clm/work/
./quickbuild.sh

After completion the following DART executables should be available within your work folder.

preprocess
advance_time
clm_to_dart
create_fixed_network_seq
create_obs_sequence
dart_to_clm
fill_inflation_restart
obs_diag
obs_seq_to_netcdf
obs_sequence_tool
filter
perfect_model_obs
model_mod_check

Next modify the DART_params.csh settings such that the directories match your personal environment.

Modify the cesmtag and CASE variable:

setenv cesmtag        <your cesm installation folder>
setenv resolution     f09_f09_mg17
setenv compset        2000_DATM%GSWP3v1_CLM50%BGC-CROP_SICE_SOCN_MOSART_SGLC_SWAV

 ..
 ..

if (${num_instances} == 1) then
  setenv CASE clm5_f09_pmo_SIF
else
  setenv CASE <your tutorial case name>
endif

Modify the SourceModDir to match the directory that you set in Step 1:

setenv use_SourceMods TRUE
setenv SourceModDir   <your SourceMods directory>

Confirm the following variables are set to match your personal environment, especially cesmroot, caseroot, cime_output_root, dartroot and project.

setenv cesmdata         /glade/campaign/cesmdata/cseg/inputdata
setenv cesmroot         /glade/work/${USER}/CESM/${cesmtag}
setenv caseroot         /glade/work/${USER}/cases/${cesmtag}/${CASE}
setenv cime_output_root /glade/derecho/scratch/${USER}/${cesmtag}/${CASE}
setenv rundir           ${cime_output_root}/run
setenv exeroot          ${cime_output_root}/bld
setenv archdir          ${cime_output_root}/archive
..
..
setenv dartroot         /glade/work/${USER}/DART
setenv baseobsdir       /glade/campaign/cisl/dares/glade-p-dares-Oct2023/Observations/land
..
..
setenv project      <insert project number>
setenv machine      derecho

Step 12: Execute the Assimilation Run

Set up the assimilation case by executing CLM5_setup_assimilation

cd DART/models/clm/shell_scripts/cesm2_2/
./CLM5_setup_assimilation

It takes approximately 7-10 minutes for the script to create the assimilation case which includes compiling the CESM executable. The script is submitted to a login node where it performs low-intensive tasks including the execution of case_setup, and preview_namelist and stages the appropriate files in the rundir.

Caution

Once the setup is complete the script will output steps (1-8) displaying ‘Check the case’. These steps are good for general reference, however, for the tutorial ignore these steps and continue to follow the instructions below.

After the case is created, by default, it is set up as a ‘free’ or ‘open-loop’ run. This means if the case is submitted as is, it will perform a normal CLM simulation without using any DART assimilation. In order to enable DART do the following:

cd <caseroot>
./CESM_DART_config

Caution

After the script is executed and DART is enabled ‘Check the DART configuration:’ will be displayed followed by suggested steps (1-5). As before these steps are good for general reference, however, for the tutorial ignore these steps and continue to follow the instructions below.

Now that DART is enabled, confirm, and if necessary, modify the run-time settings to perform daily assimilations for 5 total days. Use the scripts xmlquery to view the current settings (e.g. ./xmlquery STOP_OPTION), or you can view all the environment run settings within env_run.xml. Use the xmlchange command to change the current setting (e.g. ./xmlchange STOP_OPTION=nhours). Make sure the run-time settings are as follows:

DATA_ASSIMILATION_LND=TRUE
DATA_ASSIMILATION_SCRIPT= <dartroot>/models/clm/shell_scripts/cesm2_2/assimilate.csh
STOP_OPTION=nhours
STOP_N=24
DATA_ASSIMILATION_CYCLES=5
RESUBMIT=0
CONTINUE_RUN=FALSE

Run Time Assimilation Case Settings

Description

DATA_ASSIMILATION_LND

If .TRUE. data assimilation is enabled. If .FALSE. no data assimilation is performed, and simulation is performed as a normal CLM run.

DATA_ASSIMILATION_SCRIPT

Location of script assimilate.csh that performs the assimilation. Controls execution of DART scripts and passes files between DART and CLM code.

STOP_OPTION

Unit of time that controls duration of each assimilation cycle (see STOP_N)

STOP_N

Duration of each assimilation cycle in units of time defined by STOP_OPTION

DATA_ASSIMILATION_CYCLES

The number of assimilation cycles performed for a single job submission

RESUBMIT

The number of times each job submission is repeated as defined by STOP_OPTION, STOP_N, and DATA_ASSIMILATION_CYCLES

CONTINUE_RUN

If .FALSE. this is the startup of the assimilation run beginning from the refcase. If .TRUE. this is a continuation of a previous assimilation run.

Before submission review your input.nml within your case folder to confirm the settings reflect those from previous steps of the tutorial. Next submit the assimilation run:

> cd <caseroot>
> ./case.submit

Check the status of the job on Derecho using PBS commands to determine if job is queued (Q), running (R) or completed.

qstat -u <your username>

The job requires approximately 5-10 minutes of runtime to complete the requested 5 assimilation cycles.

Tip

The DART code provides the script stage_cesm_files within <caseroot> to restart an assimilation case. This script re-starts the assimilation at a prior point in time by re-staging the proper restart files to the <rundir> and edits the rpointer files to reference the re-staged files. This script comes in handy if an assimilation run fails or if the user modifies the input.nml settings and does not want to re-create the assimilation case from scratch using CLM5_setup_assimilation.

Also the stage_dart_files script is available if the user makes changes to the DART source code after an assimilation case has been created. Changes to the DART source code requires the executables to be re-compiled within <dartroot>/models/clm/work. Executing stage_dart_files transfers the DART executables to <exeroot> making them available when the case is submitted.

Step 13: Diagnose the Assimilation Run

Once the job has completed it is important to confirm it ran as expected without any errors. To confirm this view the CaseStatus files:

cd <caseroot>
cat CaseStatus

A successful assimilation run will look like the following at the end of the file with case.run success at the end:

2022-01-14 14:21:11: case.submit starting
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:21:18: case.submit success case.run:2684631.desched1
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:21:28: case.run starting
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:21:33: model execution starting
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:23:58: model execution success
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:23:58: case.run success
---------------------------------------------------

A failed run will provide an error message and a log file either from CESM or DART that hopefully provides more details of the error. This will look like this:

---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:24:57: case.run starting
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:24:58: model execution starting
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:25:08: model execution error
ERROR: Command: 'mpiexec -p "%g:"
/glade/derecho/scratch/bmraczka/ctsm_cesm2.2.03/clm5_assim_e5/bld/cesm.exe
>> cesm.log.$LID 2>&1 ' failed with error '' from dir
'/glade/derecho/scratch/bmraczka/ctsm_cesm2.2.03/clm5_assim_e5/run'
---------------------------------------------------
2022-01-14 14:25:08: case.run error
ERROR: RUN FAIL: Command 'mpiexec -p "%g:"
/glade/derecho/scratch/bmraczka/ctsm_cesm2.2.03/clm5_assim_e5/bld/cesm.exe   >>
cesm.log.$LID 2>&1 ' failed See log file for details:
/glade/derecho/scratch/bmraczka/ctsm_cesm2.2.03/clm5_assim_e5/run/cesm.log.2684631.desched1.231222-142931

If the case ran successfully proceed to the next step in the tutorial, but if the case did not run successfully locate the log file details which describe the error and resolve the issue. Contact dart@ucar.edu if necessary.

Just because an assimilation ran successfully (without errors) does not mean it ran with good performance. A simple, first check after any assimilation is to make sure:

  1. Observations have been accepted

  2. The CLM posterior member values are updated from their prior values

A quick way to confirm observation acceptance and the posteriors have been updated is through the obs_seq.final file located in your case run folder. Below we provide an example of a successful update (clm_obs_seq.2011-01-02-00000.final) which is derived from the same leaf area observation in obs_seq.2011-01-02-00000 as described in Step 7.

OBS            3
  6.00864688253571
  5.44649167346675
  5.45489142211957
  5.45808308572015
  3.479253215076174E-002
  3.469211455745640E-002
  5.41512442472872
  5.41843086313655
  5.44649167346675
  5.44970758027390
  5.50877061923831
  5.51180677764943
  5.46367193547511
  5.46683825691274
  5.44039845768897
  5.44363195062815
  0.000000000000000E+000
  0.000000000000000E+000
          2           4          -1
obdef
loc3d
    5.235987755982989         0.000000000000000        -888888.0000000000     -2
kind
         23
    0     149750
 0.200000000000000

Below we provide the variable names for the clm_obs_seq.2011-01-02-00000.final example from above.

  <observation sequence number>
  <observation value>
  <true observation value>
  <prior ensemble mean>
  <posterior ensemble mean>
  <prior ensemble spread>
  <posterior ensemble spread>
  <prior member 1>
  <posterior member 1>
  <prior member 2>
  <posterior member 2>
  <prior member 3>
  <posterior member 3>
  <prior member 4>
  <posterior member 4>
  <prior member 5>
  <posterior member 5>
  <data product QC>
  <DART quality control>

obdef
loc3d
    <longitude>    <latitude>   <vertical level>   <vertical code>
kind
   <observation quantity number>
   <seconds>     <days>
   <observation error variance>

In the example above, the observation has been accepted denoted by a DART quality control value = 0. If the DART quality control value =7 this indicates the observation has fallen outside the outlier_threshold value and is rejected. For more details on the DART quality control variables read the documentation.

Now, compare your clm_obs_seq.final file to the example provided above:

cd <rundir>
less clm_obs_seq.2011-01-02-00000.final

First, confirm that the observation (and other observations) was accepted.

Second, confirm that the posterior member values have been updated from their respective prior member values. Your simulation has run successfully if the posterior member and posterior ensemble mean values have moved closer to the observation value as compared to the prior values.

Do not expect your own clm_obs_seq.final file to be bit-by-bit identical (i.e. identical to the 14th decimal place) to the example given above. Slight changes in compiler and run time environment are known to cause small changes when running CLM-DART. Furthermore, CLM is set up to run in hybrid mode, which unlike branch mode does not provide bit-by-bit reproducibility.

This tutorial has been purposely designed such that all observations are accepted and the posteriors have been updated. In research applications, however, the vast majority of observations may be rejected if there is large systemic biases between the model ensemble and the observations. In that case, it may take many assimilation time steps before the inflation creates a sufficient enough ensemble spread such that the observation falls within the outlier threshold and is accepted. In other cases, an observation may be accepted, but the posterior update is negligible. If you experience these issues, a helpful troubleshooting guide is located here.

Matlab Diagnostics

Once you have confirmed that the assimilation has been completed reasonably well as outlined by the steps above, the DART package includes a wide variety of Matlab diagnostic scripts that provide a more formal evaluation of assimilation performance. These diagnostics can provide clues to further maximize performance through adjustments of the DART settings (localization, inflation, etc.). The full suite of diagnostic scripts can be found at this path in your DART installation (DART/diagnostics/matlab) with supporting documentation found here.

Note

Additional scripts that are designed for CLM output visualization can be found here (DART/models/clm/matlab). The clm_get_var.m and clm_plot_var.m scripts are designed to re-constitute a vector-based file (e.g. restart.nc) into gridded averages to allow viewing of spatial maps. These scripts are helpful to view the model update by DART (innovations). An example of how to implement these scripts can be found here (DART/models/clm/matlab/README.txt).

Here we provide instructions to execute two highly recommended matlab scripts. First, the plot_rmse_xxx_evolution.m script provides a time series of assimilation statistics of 1) observation acceptance, 2) RMSE between the observations and the expected observation (derived from the CLM state), and 3) a third statistic of your choosing (we recommended ‘total spread’).

The observation acceptance statistic compares the number of observations assimilated versus the number of observations available for your domain. In general, it is desirable to assimilate the majority of observations that are available. The RMSE statistic quantifies the mismatch between the observations and the CLM state. A successful assimilation reduces the RMSE, thus reducing the mismatch between the observations and the CLM state. Finally the total spread provides contributions from the ensemble spread and observation error variance. This value should be comparable to the RMSE.

To execute plot_rmse_xxx_evolution.m do the following:

cd DART/models/clm/work

Confirm the DART executables used for the matlab diagnostics exist. These should have been compiled during Step 11 of this tutorial. The important DART executables for the diagnostics are obs_diag and obs_seq_to_netcdf. If they do not exist, perform the ./quickbuild.sh command to create them.

Next generate a text file that includes all the clm_obs_seq*.final files that were created from the tutorial simulation

ls <rundir>/*final > obs_seq_files_tutorial.txt

Next edit the &obs_diag_nml namelist within the input.nml. to assign the obs_seqence_list to the text file containing the names of the clm_obs_seq*.final files associated with the tutorial. Next, specify how the observations are displayed by defining the bin settings, which for this tutorial are set such that every day of observations are displayed individually. Because the tutorial is a global run we define the lonlim and latlim setting to include the entire globe. For more information about the obs_diag namelist settings go here.

&obs_diag_nml
  obs_sequence_name = ''
  obs_sequence_list = 'obs_seq_files_tutorial.txt'
  first_bin_center =  2011, 1,  2, 0, 0, 0
  last_bin_center  =  2011, 1,  6, 0, 0, 0
  bin_separation   =     0, 0,  1, 0, 0, 0
  bin_width        =     0, 0,  1, 0, 0, 0
  time_to_skip     =     0, 0,  0, 0, 0, 0
  max_num_bins     = 1000
  trusted_obs      = 'null'
  Nregions   = 1
  lonlim1    =     0.0,
  lonlim2    =   360.0,
  latlim1    =   -90.0,
  latlim2    =    90.0,
  reg_names  = 'tutorial',
  hlevel_edges =  0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0, 40.0
  print_mismatched_locs = .false.
  create_rank_histogram = .true.
  outliers_in_histogram = .true.
  use_zero_error_obs    = .false.
  verbose               = .true.
  /

Next convert the information in the clm_obs_seq*.final files into a netcdf format (obs_diag_output.nc) by executing the obs_diag executable.

./obs_diag

Next, use Matlab to create the plot_rmse_xxx_evolution.m figures. Note that this function automatically plots the RMSE, where the copy and the obsname variable are customizable.

cd DART/diagnostics/matlab
module load matlab
matlab -nodesktop
>> fname   = '<dartroot>/models/clm/work/obs_diag_output.nc';
>> copy    = 'totalspread';
>> obsname = 'MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX';
>> plotdat = plot_rmse_xxx_evolution(fname, copy, 'obsname', obsname);

Tip

When remotely logged into Derecho there is a time delay when the Matlab figures are rendering, and also when interacting with the figures. For the purposes of this tutorial this delay is minimal. However, to improve responsiveness for your own research you may find it convenient to port your diagnostic files (e.g. obs_diag_output.nc) and run the Matlab diagnostics on your local machine. This requires a compiled version of DART and a Matlab license for your local machine.

The finished figure should look like the following below. Click on it to enlarge. Notice that the figure has two axes; the left providing the RMSE and total spread statistics, whereas the right provides the observations available and observations assimilated for each time step.

plot_rmse

Second, the link_obs.m provides several features, including a spatial map of the observation locations with color coded DART QC values. This allows the user to identify observation acceptance as a function of sub-regions.

Next edit both the &obs_seq_to_netcdf_nml and &schedule_nml namelist sections within input.nml.

For this tutorial we plot a list of the clm_obs_seq*.final files as shown below, which includes the global domain. We include all observations within a single bin. For more information about these settings go here.

&obs_seq_to_netcdf_nml
  obs_sequence_name = ''
  obs_sequence_list = 'obs_seq_files_tutorial.txt'
  append_to_netcdf  = .false.
  lonlim1    =    0.0
  lonlim2    =  360.0
  latlim1    =  -90.0
  latlim2    =   90.0
  verbose    = .false.
  /

&schedule_nml
  calendar        = 'Gregorian'
  first_bin_start =  1601,  1,  1,  0,  0,  0
  first_bin_end   =  2999,  1,  1,  0,  0,  0
  last_bin_end    =  2999,  1,  1,  0,  0,  0
  bin_interval_days    = 1000000
  bin_interval_seconds = 0
  max_num_bins         = 1000
  print_table          = .true.
  /

Next execute the obs_seq_to_netcdf to convert the observation information into a netcdf readable file (obs_epoch_001.nc) for link_obs.m

./obs_seq_to_netcdf

Next, use Matlab to create the link_obs.m figures.

cd DART/diagnostics/matlab
module load matlab
matlab -nodesktop
>> fname         = '<dartroot>/models/clm/work/obs_epoch_001.nc';
>> ObsTypeString = 'MODIS_LEAF_AREA_INDEX';
>> ObsCopyString = 'observations';
>> CopyString    = 'prior ensemble mean';
>> QCString      = 'DART quality control';
>> region        = [0 360 -90 90 -Inf Inf];
>> global obsmat;
>> link_obs(fname, ObsTypeString, ObsCopyString, CopyString, QCString, region)

The link_obs.m script creates 3 separate figures including a 1) 3D geographic scatterplot, 2) observation diagnostic plot as a function of time, and 3) 2D scatterplot that typically compares the ‘prior/posterior expected obsevations’ against the ‘actual observation’. Read the commented section within the link_obs.m script for more information.

The completed link_obs.m figures are shown below for the 3D geographic scatterplot (left) and the 2d scatterplot (right). Click to enlarge. Note that the 2D scatterplot compares the prior expected observations vs. the actual observations. The 1:1 fit for this plot is poor, but should be slightly improved if you compare the posterior observations vs. the actual observations.

Note

The matlab geographic scatterplot is rendered in 3D and can be converted into 2D (as it appears below) by using the ‘Rotate 3D’ option at the top of the figure or through the menu bar as Tools > Rotate 3D. Use the cursor to rotate the map such that the vertical dimension is removed. For 3D observations with no vertical coordinate, such as MODIS LEAF AREA, DART sets VERTISUNDEF for the vertical coordinate and -888888 as the vertical value. During assimilation, DART ignores the missing vertical dimension for observations with VERTISUNDEF. For more information about specifying vertical coordinates for observations see Creating an obs_seq file from real observations.

link_obs1

link_obs3

If you have completed all these steps (1-13) Congratulations! – you are well on your way to designing CLM5-DART assimilations for your own research.