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How do one add a constant field (like abledo or SST)?

To add a constant field to the REGRID_DOMAIN1 file, make use of the constants_full_name parameter in recors3 of the namelist.input file.

The optional constants_full_name is the name of a file that may have fields which are to be kept constant through all time periods, this is most useful for fields like SST, snow cover (which may frequently be missing from archives) or albedo fields.

To use this parameter, save constant fields to a file (example, ../pregrid/SST_FILE:1993-03-13_00), and MOVE the "/" after the terrain_file_name, to after the constants_full_name, i.e., change

terrain_file_name                 = '../../TERRAIN/TERRAIN_DOMAIN1' /
constants_full_name             = '../pregrid/SST_FILE:1993-03-13_00'

TO

 terrain_file_name                = '../../TERRAIN/TERRAIN_DOMAIN1'
 constants_full_name             = '../pregrid/SST_FILE:1993-03-13_00' /

 

OR, in the case of albedo, change

terrain_file_name                 = '../../TERRAIN/TERRAIN_DOMAIN1' /
constants_full_name             = 'ALMX_FILE'

TO

 terrain_file_name                = '../../TERRAIN/TERRAIN_DOMAIN1'
 constants_full_name             = 'ALMX_FILE' /

 

If you want to use the monthly albedo data (we recommend using the ALMX_FILE instead of the monthly albedo data), you can add them in the same manner as above. If you want to add more than one month's albedo data, add them as a list, i.e., constants_full_name = 'AL01_FILE' 'AL02_FILE' The ALMX_FILE is available in the REGRID TAR file. The monthly albedo data is available on the ftp site:    ftp://ftp.ucar.edu/mesouser/MM5V3/REGRID_DATA/MONTHLY_ALBEDO.TAR.gz