WRF Model Update
The WRF model tar file has been updated to Version
3.7.1 on August 14, 2015. For known problems in V3.7.1, please click here.
The WRF Pre-Processing System (WPS) has been updated to Version 3.7.1.
Note: V3.7.1 WRF can use wrfinput and wrfbdy files from V3.6 version. Please note that the VEGPARM.TBL in run/ is updated in V3.7, and must be used with 3.7 and 3.7.1 code.
As always, be cautious when using new options.
If you are interested in seeing
how V3.7 has been tested, click here.
Improvements and Bug fixes:
Physics:
Atmospheric Radiation:
- Fast RRTMG longwave option (ra_lw_physics = 24): fix to give correct results. Do not use the fast version of longwave scheme in 3.7. Some code clean-up for the fast shortwave option (24) (Thanks to John Michalakes of NOAA)
- Radiation diagnostic output: fix to get meaningful diffuse fraction when the new Goddard radiation ra_sw_physics=5) is used.
Microphysics:
- NSSL 2-moment scheme: (Thanks to Ted Mansell of NSSL)
(a) a correction in the number concentration of new rain drops from melting snow.
(b) added code to check for overdepletion of snow (i.e., prevent negative mixing ratios).
(c) fixed the hail production term if a user changes the default value of 'ifrzg' (no effect on standard configuration).
(d) Minor fix in the graupel reflectivity (again if user changes a default option) (no effect on standard configuration).
(e) Changes cloud droplet terms to be correct in case ice crystals are chosen to be plates rather than columns (no effect on standard configuration).
- Hail size diagnostic output: adjust threshold value to give larger sizes.
Cumulus:
- KF-type schems (cu_physics=1,11): fix to correctly detrain frozen species to microphysics schemes that do not have QICE array, but QSNOW only (e.g. Ferrier-type schemes) (Thanks to Evelyn Grell of NOAA)
-
Tiedtke (cu_physics=6): change two constants, cmfctop and cprcon, back to 3.6 values (these parameters are tunable).
- MSKF scheme (cu_physics=11): fix to correct a dry bias in the MSKF scheme. Modificatin to the grid-scale vertical motion is removed (Thanks to EPA).
Planetary boundary layer and surface layer physics:
- Revised MM5 surface layer schemes (sf_sfclay_physics = 1): fix a out-of-bounds issue.
- Improved messages about compatability between PBL and surface layer options.
-
Shin-Hong PBL scheme (bl_pbl_physics = 11): fix for computing scale-dependency function for vapor mixing ratio to be multiplied by the vertical flux rather than vapor mixing ratio tendency.
Land Surface physics:
- NoahMP (sf_surface_physics=4): fix OpenMP problem with NoahMP - previously NoahMP does not work correctly with OpenMP. (Thanks to Mike Barlage of RAL/NCAR)
- Noah (sf_surface_physics=2): fix to the calculation of skin temperature over seaice when snow melting is occuring. (Thanks to Louis Marelle of LATMOS, France)
- RUC LSM (sf_surface_physics=3): fix to correct vegetation fraction input, and snow mosaic option. (Thanks to Tanya Smirnova of NOAA)
Others:
- Fire code: fix to some OpenMP usage.
- Climate diagnostic output (output_diagnostics=1): fix for undefined values when computing climatological standard deviation fields for surface temperature, and mixing ratio.
Dynamics:
- Hydrostatic option (non_hydrostatic=.false.):fix for a formulation error in hydrostatic pressure gradient calculation. (Thanks to Sang-Hun Park of NCAR)
Initialization/BC/Namelist:
- Use of special level data: In V3.7, code was introduced to make use of tropapause and maximum wind level data (T and wind). When vertically interpolating this horizontally discontinuous data, several layers in the horizontal wind and temperature (to a lesser extent in the height field, also) exhibit the structure of the original nearest-neighbor interpolated data (i.e. very boxy). There are several changes:
1) WPS has two changes: ungrib source mods, and the METGRID.TBL file. The ungrib program output a duplicate pressure so that the metgrid program is able to process it both with a nearest neighbor AND also with a 4-pt bilinear interpolation.
2) The real program has two changes:
a) Determine if the user would like to use the additional levels of data. Two options are introduced: use_maxw_level and use_trop_level (0, off; 1, on). And the default option is off.
b) Modify the vertical interpolation to use the nearest neighbor to determine variable eligibility for inclusion in the vertical interpolation (horizontal pressure differences larger than a prescribed maximum invalidates the new data - this test was already in the code). Modify the vertical interpolation to use the 4-pt pressure for the actual pressure to insert in the column of data.
By default, the max wind and tropopause data will be excluded from vertical interpolation. In version 3.7, the user had no control over using the data. The idea is that by default, the user gets much cleaner IC/BC files. If the user turns on the option to get the max wind or tropopause levels, the user gets a much better set of fields than they used to get.
-
Lateral boundary conditions: fix a problem with specified and nested boundary conditions off by one time step
- cubic-spline vertical interpolation (interp_option=9): a correction to out-of-bound error (Thanks to William Wei of CWB, Taiwan and Jim Bresch of NCAR)
- Idealized soil initialization: fix for initializing soil fields in idealized cases.
- zdamp value in the namelist.input files in em_les/ is changed from 15000 to 5000 m.
Software:
- fix for compilation option using XLF on AIX
- fix for variable types in usig intrinsic functions. Only affecting XLF compilations.
- fix to remove unimportant error messages when trying to compile external PIO modules.
- fix to revert file names to its intended form when pnetcdf is used. The problem was introduced in 3.7 code.
- fix a bug related to NCEP_DEBUG_MULTIDIR use (Thanks to Mark Filipak of University of Edingburgh, UK).
