MPAS-Atmosphere Meshes

Several resolutions of quasi-uniform and refined meshes are available for download. Each mesh download provides the following:

  • an SCVT mesh on the unit sphere

  • the mesh connectivity (graph.info) file for the mesh

  • partitionings of the mesh (e.g., graph.info.part.32) for various MPI task counts

Additionally, for quasi-uniform meshes, “static” files using the default datasets are available. The static file downloads provide single-precision static files in CDF-5/64-bit data format and mesh connectivity files.




Creating limited-area subsets of meshes

MPAS-Atmosphere includes the capability to perform regional simulations. Regional meshes are formed as subsets of existing meshes. The MPAS-Limited-Area Python tool is the supported method for generating regional meshes as subsets of any of the meshes or static files available from the “Download” links below. Please refer to the documentation provided with MPAS-Limited-Area for details of its use.




Quasi-uniform Meshes and Static Fields

Click on links in the “File” column below to download the mesh and static file needed.


Resolution

# of horizontal grid cells

File

480 km

2562

Download the 480-km mesh (1.5 MB)
Download the 480-km static file (1.0 MB)

384 km

4002

Download the 384-km mesh (2.4 MB)
Download the 384-km static file (2.3 MB)

240 km

10242

Download the 240-km mesh (6.3 MB)
Download the 240-km static file (4.0 MB)

120 km

40962

Download the 120-km mesh (25.7 MB)
Download the 120-km static file (16.2 MB)

60 km

163842

Download the 60-km mesh (106 MB)
Download the 60-km static file (69.6 MB)

48 km

256002

Download the 48-km mesh (182 MB)
Download the 48-km static file (174 MB)

30 km

655362

Download the 30-km mesh (436 MB)
Download the 30-km static file (296 MB)

24 km

1024002

Download the 24-km mesh (685 MB)
Download the 24-km static file (525 MB)

15 km

2621442

Download the 15-km mesh (1659 MB)
Download the 15-km static file (1366 MB)



Dense Meshes

Note

The 3-d fields that exist in the model at higher resolution can easily exceed the 4 GB limit imposed by the classic netCDF format. When creating atmospheric initial conditions (i.e., the “init.nc” file), and when writing output streams from the model with 3-d fields, it is necessary to use an “io_type” that supports large variables, such as “pnetcdf,cdf5” or “netcdf4”. For more information on selecting the “io_type” of a stream, refer to Configuring Model Input and Output from the MPAS-A Users’ Guide.

Note that when processing GWDO static fields, each MPI task needs to allocate ~4 GB of additional memory to hold the global 30-arc-second terrain dataset. In many cases it may be necessary to under-subscribe batch nodes to avoid exceeding memory limits.


Resolution

# of horizontal grid cells

File

12 km

4096002

Download the 12-km mesh (2713 MB)
Download the 12-km static file (2447 MB)

10 km

5898242

Download the 10-km mesh (3916 MB)
Download the 10-km static file (2947 MB)

7.5 km

10485762

Download the 7.5-km mesh (6936 MB)
Download the 7.5-km static file (6489 MB)

5 km

23592962

Download the 5-km mesh (15487 MB)
Download the 5-km static file (14508 MB)

4 km

36864002

Download the 4-km mesh (23721 MB)
Download the 4-km static file (21458 MB)

3.75 km

41943042

Download the 3.75-km mesh (27246 MB)
Download the 3.75-km static file (25242 MB)

3 km

65536002

Download the 3-km mesh (42007 MB)
Download the 3-km static file (38624 MB)



Variable-resolution Meshes

All variable-resolution meshes are supplied with a single refinement region that is centered on 0.0 degree latitude, 0.0 degree longitude. This region of refinement may be relocated to other locations on the sphere using the “grid_rotate”, whose usage is described in Preparing Meshes from the MPAS-A Users’ Guide.



92-25 km Mesh

This mesh contains 163,842 horizontal grid cells, with the refinement region spanning approximately 60 degrees of latitude/longitude.

../_images/x4.163842.grid.png

Download the 92-25 km mesh (135 MB)



46-12 km Mesh

This mesh is like the 92-km to 25-km mesh, but with twice the horizontal resolution and 655,362 horizontal grid cells.

../_images/x4.655362.grid.png

Download the 46-12 km mesh (592 MB)



60-15 km Mesh

This mesh contains 535,554 horizontal grid cells, with the refinement region spanning approximately 55 degrees of latitude and 110 degrees of longitude.

../_images/x4.535554.grid.png

Download the 60-15 km mesh (474 MB)



60-10 km Mesh

This mesh contains 999,426 horizontal grid cells, with the refinement region spanning approximately 80 degrees of latitude/longitude.

../_images/x6.999426.grid.png

Download the 60-10 km mesh (913 MB)



60-3 km Mesh

This mesh contains 835,586 horizontal grid cells, with the refinement region spanning approximately 16 degrees of latitude/longitude.

../_images/x20.835586.grid.png

Download the 60-3 km mesh (628 MB)



60-15 km (Tropical Refinement) Mesh

This mesh contains 1,572,866 horizontal grid cells, with the refinement region spanning the tropics.

../_images/x4.1572866.grid.png

Download the 60-15 km (Tropical Refinement) mesh (1177 MB)



15-3 km (Circular Refinement) Mesh

This mesh contains 6,488,066 horizontal grid cells, with the circular refinement region spanning approximately 60 degrees of latitude/longitude. When using this mesh, the following steps are required.

  1. The 3-d fields that exist in the model at higher resolution can exceed the 4 GB limit imposed by the classic netCDF format. When creating atmospheric initial conditions (i.e., the “init.nc” file), and when writing output streams from the model with 3-d fields, it is necessary to use an “io_type” that supports large variables, such as “pnetcdf,cdf5” or “netcdf4”. For more information on selecting the “io_type” of a stream, refer to Configuring Model Input and Output from the MPAS-A Users’ Guide.

  2. When processing GWDO static fields, each MPI task needs to allocate ~4 GB of additional memory to hold the global 30-arc-second terrain dataset. In many cases, it may be necessary to under-subscribe batch nodes to avoid exceeding memory limits.

  3. When running the model with the 15-km to 3-km mesh, set config_apvm_upwinding=0.0 in the nhyd_model namelist record.


../_images/x5.6488066.grid.png

Download the 15-3 km (Circular Refinement) mesh (4560 MB)



15-3 km (Elliptical Refinement) Mesh

This mesh contains x5.8060930 horizontal grid cells, with the elliptical refinement region spanning approximately 60 degrees of latitude and 80 degrees of longitude. When using this mesh, the following changes are required.

  1. The 3-d fields that exist in the model at higher resolution can exceed the 4 GB limit imposed by the classic netCDF format. When creating atmospheric initial conditions (i.e., the “init.nc” file), and when writing output streams from the model with 3-d fields, it is necessary to use an “io_type” that supports large variables, such as “pnetcdf,cdf5” or “netcdf4”. For more information on selecting the “io_type” of a stream, refer to Configuring Model Input and Output from the MPAS-A Users’ Guide.

  2. When processing GWDO static fields, each MPI task needs to allocate ~4 GB of additional memory to hold the global 30-arc-second terrain dataset. In many cases, it may be necessary to under-subscre batch nodes to avoid exceeding memory limits.

  3. When running the model with the 15-km to 3-km mesh, set config_apvm_upwinding=0.0 in the nhyd_model namelist record.


../_images/x5.8060930.grid.png

Download the 15-3 km (Elliptical Refinement) mesh (5963 MB)