Mesoscale Parallel Experiment Change Log

Experiment Name:  North American NEMS/NMMB test

When Who What
2013/04/24/00 Ferrier, Tassone
  • Change the elevated critical threshold for the onset of condensation (RHgrd) to be 0.98
  • Change in radiation to allow for lower thresholds of nonzero cloud fractions is kept, which allow for cloud fractions as small as 0.1%.
  • Increase z0clim roughness length values for these IGBP vegetation types:
    1. Evergreen Needleleaf Forest
    2. Deciduous Broadleaf Forest
    3. Mixed Forests
    4. Croplands
    5. Cropland/natural vegetation mosaic
    • 2013/03/13/12 Rogers
  • Changed SIGFAC from 1.5 to 0 the parallel Alaska nest
    • 2013/03/06/00 Wu
  • Begun ingest of the GDAS ozone field in the GSI analysis for radiance assimilation enhancement
    • 2013/02/15/18 Wu
  • Changes to the GSI aanlysis
    1. Turn on variational QC scheme in GSI code
    2. Assimilate Meteosat 10 wind subtypes with different data thinning
    • 2013/02/13/00 Rogers, Janjic
  • Changed SIGFAC from 3 to 1.5 in the parallel Alaska nest
    • 2013/02/10/00 Rogers
  • NAMX forecast now running a CONUS and Alaska nest with these changes:
    1. No parameterized convection in the parallel CONUS nest
    2. SIGFAC=3 in the gravity wave drag formulation in the parallel Alaska nest
    • 2013/02/01/00 Y. Wu, Ek
  • Bug fixed in the setup of soil parameters in the Bulk Urban Parameterization in Noah LSM to avoid too high LH fluxes and 2-m dewpoints in urban areas, done by setting SMCDRY=0.4
    • 2013/01/30/00 Ferrier
  • Change to the microphysics:
    1. Decreased NLImax (the maximum number of large ice particles) from 20.e3 (20 per liter) to 10.e3 (20 per liter).
    • 2013/01/29/00 Rogers
  • Use of GOES-15 radiances in the GSI analysis for NAMX was never turned on as indicated in the 12/11/2012 entry below. They will be used in NAMX as of this cycle, and the NDASX cycle will be restarted with bias correction files spun up for GOES-15 from NDASB.
    • 2012/12/11/00 Wu
  • Turn on use of GOES-15 radiances in the GSI analysis
  • All parallel NDAS cycles restarted with satellite bias correction files spun up with GOES-15 information
    • 2012/12/05/00 Wu
  • GSI analysis upgraded to the same version (r20439) that is running in NAMZ on Zeus
    • 2012/11/21/18 Ferrier, Wu
  • Added subroutine CLTEND from the WRF NMM to the NMMB solver code so that temperature changes from moist cloud processes (convection, grid-scale microphysics) are incrementally applied at each dynamics time step.
  • Begin use of new VAD winds in GSI analysis
    • 2012/11/08/18 Wu
  • GSI analysis changes : use GPS bending angle observations
    1. Replace refractivity with bending angle from satellites GRACE A, COSMIC 1-6, METOP A
    2. Turn on bending angle obs from TSX, SAC-C, C/NOFS
    3. Set cut off height to 30 km (12mb)
    • 2012/10/02/00 Janjic
  • Changes to the BMJ convective scheme
    1. An error in the LCL layer in the triggering part of the code was fixed
    2. CAPE is checked instead of entropy in the triggering part of the code
    3. Redundant constant definitions through argument list and use are removed
    4. Weak momentum transport by shallow convection
    5. Combination of old and new shallow convection
    • 2012/09/27/18 Ferrier, H-M. Lin, Hou
  • Added an extra layer above the top of the model domain within the internal RRTM radiation driver for the NMMB (grrad_nmmb.f) to account for the radiative effects of ozone and other trace gases (CO2, N2O, CH4, O2, CO, and various CFCs) from the model top to the top of the atmosphere. A fixed profile with height is assumed for the trace gases.
    • 2012/09/14/00 Ferrier
  • Restored aerosol impact in RRTM radiation
    • 2012/08/14/18 Ferrier
  • Removed diurnal variation of albedo in the RRTM radiation
    • 2012/07/31/18 Ferrier
  • Begin use of global monthly CO2 concentrations used in the GFS
  • Turned off aerosol impact in RRTM radiation
    • 2012/07/24/18 Ferrier, H-M. Lin
  • The RRTM code was changed to add in small amounts of convective clouds into the input cloud calculations, but only if all of the following conditions are met:
    1. The maximum condensate mixing ratio is < QWmax.
    2. Only shallow convection is present, do not apply to deep convection.
    3. Only apply if the depth of shallow convection is between CU_DEEP_MIN (50 hPa) and CU_DEEP_MAX (200 hPa).
    4. Convective precipitation rate must be <0.01 mm/h.
  • The July 3rd version of RRTM and the fix for the calculation of the time-averaged mean of the cosine of the zenith angle in the RRTM radiation scheme was installed in the NAMB parallel.
    • 2012/07/09/18 Ferrier
  • Installed a fix for the calculation of the time-averaged mean of the cosine of the zenith angle in the RRTM radiation scheme.
    • 2012/07/05/12 Ferrier, H-M. Lin
  • Begin use of July 3rd version of RRTM
  • Reduction of resolution factor for DSP's ("fres') from 0.85 to 0.75 put into NAMB parallel
    • 2012/06/07/00 Janjic, Wu
  • Use of global EnKF members to compute background error covariances in the regional GSI was put into the NAMB control parallel
  • Reduce resolution factor for DSP's ("fres') from 0.85 to 0.75
    • 2012/05/22/18 Wu
  • Begin use of mesonet wind observation reject list from RTMA.
    • 2012/04/24/00 Ferrier, H-M. Lin, Hou
  • Revert back to 28 March version of cloud fraction formulation in RRTM radiation (radiation_clouds.f routine).
    • 2012/04/21/12 Wu
  • First run of NAM parallel with EnKF version of the GSI analysis, using ensemble forecasts from the global EnKF system to compute background error covariances; with NAMB as the control run.
  • NAMX running with all NAMB changes described here.