Model Solver
- fully compressible nonhydrostatic
equations with hydrostatic option
- complete coriolis and curvature terms
- two-way nesting with multiple nests and nest levels
- one-way nesting
- moving nest
- mass-based terrain-following coordinate (note that the height-based
dynamic core is no longer supported)
- vertical grid-spacing can vary with height
- map-scale factors for conformal projections:
* polar stereographic
* Lambert-conformal
* Mercator
* latitude-longitude (which can be rotated)
- Arakawa C-grid staggering
- Runge-Kutta 2nd- and 3rd-order timestep options
- scalar-conserving flux form for prognostic variables
- 2nd to 6th order advection options (horizontal and vertical)
- time-split small step for acoustic and gravity-wave modes:
* small step horizontally-explicit, vertically-implicit
* divergence damping option and vertical time off-centering
* external-mode filtering option
- lateral boundary conditions
* idealized cases: periodic, symmetric, and
open radiative
* real cases: specified with relaxation zone
- upper boundary absorbing layer option
* increased diffusion
* Rayleigh relaxation
* implicit gravity-wave damping
- rigid upper lid option
- positive definite and monotonic advection scheme for scalars
(microphysics species, scalars and tke)
- adaptive time stepping (new in V3.0)
- stochastic kinetic-energy backscatter scheme for perturbing forecasts (V3.3)
- WENO (Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory) advection scheme (V3.4)
Physics
- microphysics
* Kessler
* WRF Single Moment (WSM) 3, 5 and 6 class
* Lin et al.
* Eta Ferrier
* Thompson
* Goddard 6 class
* Morrison 2-moment
* WRF Double Moment (WDM) 5 and 6 class
* Thompson scheme from old version
* Milbrandt-Yau double moment
* Stony-Brook University Lin scheme
* NSSL 2-moment
(v3.4) / 1-moment (v3.5)
* CAM 5.1 2-moment (v3.5)
- cumulus and shallow convetion parameterization
* Kain-Fritsch with shallow convection
* Betts-Miller-Janjic
* Grell-Devenyi ensemble scheme
* New Grell 3D ensemble scheme
* Grell-Freitas ensemble scheme
(v3.5)
* Tiedtke
* New SAS (Simplied Arakawa-Schubert) from GFS
* Old SAS
(from GFS too)
* Zhang-McFarlane
*
University of Washington shallow convection
* GRIMS shallow convection (v3.5)
- planetary boundary layer
* Yonsei University (S. Korea) with improved stable BL
* Mellor-Yamada-Janjic
* Asymmetric Convective Model (ACM2)
* Quasi-normal scale elimination/Eddy diffusivity/ mass flux (QNSE-EDMF) (v3.4)
* Level 2.5 and 3 Mellor-Yamada Nakanishi Niino (MYNN) PBL
*
Bougeault-Lacarrere PBL
*
University of Washington TKE PBL
* Total energy - mass flux (TEMF) scheme
* Grenier-Bretherton-McCaa TKE PBL
(v3.5)
* MRF
- surface layer
* similarity theory MM5 - may be run with a 1-D ocean mixed layer model
* Eta or MYJ
* PX
* QNSE
* MYNN
* TEMF
* Revised MM5 scheme (v3.4)
- land-surface
* slab soil model (5-layer thermal diffusion)
* Unified Noah
land-surface model
* Urban
canopy model (works with Noah LSM)
* Multi-layer
building environment parameterization (BEP, works with Noah,
and requires BouLac and MYJ PBL)
* Building energy model (BEM, works with Noah and requires BouLac and MYJ PBL)
* RUC LSM
* PX LSM
* Noah-MP (v3.4)
* SSiB (v3.4)
* CLM4 (v3.5)
* use of fractional sea-ice
* WRF-Hydro (v3.5)
- longwave radiation
* RRTM
* CAM
* RRTMG
* Goddard
* Fu-Liou-Gu
- shortwave radiation
* simple MM5 scheme, with Zaengl radiation/topography (slope and shadowing) effects
* Goddard (old)
* CAM
* RRTMG
* Goddard
* Fu-Liou-Gu
- ocean physics
* single-column mixed layer ocean model
* 3D Price-Weller-Pinkel (PWP) ocean model
- sub-grid turbulence
* constant K diffusion
* 2-D Smagorinsky
* predicted TKE
* nonlinear backscatter and anisotropy (NBA) turbulence option for LES (new in V3.2)
- land-use categories determine
surface properties
- SST, greenness fraction, seaice and albedo update during long
simulations
- analysis nudging, 3-D and surface (new
in V3.1)
- observation nudging (new in V2.2)
- spectral nudging using gridded analyses (new in V3.1)
WRF initialization
- idealized: several cases, 1D, 2D
and 3D
- single column model (new in V3.1)
- real-data using WRF Preprocessing System (WPS) to prepare input data
- digital filter initialization (new in V3.0) for single domain and for one-way nesting
I/O Option
- netCDF, most common. Work with all supported
graphics.
- PHDF5 (Kent Yang, University of Illinois)
- GriB 1 (Todd Hutchinson, WSI)
- GriB 2(Todd Hutchinson, WSI) (new in V2.2)
- Binary
- parallel netCDF (Argonne National Lab)
Platforms it runs on
- IBM SP systems (e.g. Power5/6-based systems)
- IBM Blue Gene
- SGI: Origin 2000 and Altix
- Linux: PGI, Intel ifort, Pathscale, gfortran and g95 compilers
Pentium 3/4 clusters and SMPs
Pentium 4 cluster iJet system at NOAA FSL
Intel Xeon IA32
IA64/Linux MPP (SGI Altix)
IA64/Linux MPP (HP Superdome at PNNL)
IA64/Linux MPP (NCSA)
IA64/Linux SMP (local)
AMD Opteron
- Mac Intel/PPC, PGI/ifort/g95
- Intel MIC (Xeon Phi 3100/5110P)
- Sun (single and SMP)
- Cray: CLE XE6 and XC30, CS300
- HP-UX
- NEC: SX/8
- Fujitsu: VPP 5000, FX10
Software Architecture
- Hierarchical software architecture that insulates
scientific code (Model Layer) from computer architecture (Driver
Layer).
- Multi-level parallelism supporting shared-memory (OpenMP), distributed-memory
(MPI), and hybrid shared/distributed modes of execution.
- Active data registry: defines and manages model state fields,
I/O, nesting, configuration, and numerous other aspects of WRF
through a single file, called the Registry.
- ESMF Time Management, including exact arithmetic for fractional
time steps (no drift); model start, stop, run length and I/O frequencies
are now specified as times and time intervals in 2.0 (rather than
numbers of steps, as in 1.3 and earlier).
- Documentation,
both on-line (web-based browsing tools) and in-line.
- Two-way nesting:
* Easy to extend: forcing and feedback of
new fields specified by editing a single table in the Registry
* Efficient: 5-8% overhead on 64 processes of IBM
- Moving nest:
* support specified and automatic moving nest
using a vortex-following algorithm
* fully parallel
* telescoping
* efficient, less than 2% overhead for movement
- Enhanced I/O options:
* NetCDF, Parallel HDF5 formats, and Grib1
* split-output file option available for netCDF
* units in netCDF files are conforming to standard
* Five auxiliary history output streams separately controllable
through the namelist
* Output file names and time-stamps specifiable through namelist
* Special output stream for 3DVAR
* runtime input / output selection (new in V3.2)
- Efficient execution on a range of computing
platforms:
* IBM SP systems, (e.g. NCAR "bluevista/blueice" Power5-based
system)
* HP/Compaq Alpha/OSF workstation, SMP, and MPP systems (e.g.
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center TCS)
* SGI Origin and Altix
* Linux/Intel
. IA64 MPP (HP Superdome, SGI Altix, NCSA
Teragrid systems) . IA64 SMP
. AMD Opteron
. Pentium 3/4 SMP and SMP clusters (NOAA/FSL iJet system)
. PGI and Intel compilers supported
* Sun Solaris (single threaded and SMP)
* Cray X1, X1e (vector), and XD1 (Opteron) series
* NEC SX/8
*
Fujitsu VPP 5000, FX10
Features new in version 3 of WRF software:
- RSL_LITE: communication layer,
scalable to very large domains, nest support.
- Memory usage improvement.
- Generalized physics interface.
- ESMF integration: WRF can be run as an ESMF
component.
- WRF-DA and model synchronization.
