Change Log for 13-km development Rapid Refresh version at NOAA/ESRL/GSD

    Main RR homepage

    This change log starts from Dec 2007.

    5 Dec 2007

    REAL, wrf.nl
    Fix to sea-ice problem. Started using new sigma values in wrf.nl with lowest level now at 0.999 (previous 0.997). (Stan for Tanya)

    10 Dec 2007

    WPS
    Switch to 2.2.1 WPS code with the bug-fix for winds.

    11 Dec 2007

    RR sigma levels
    To avoid vertical instability the lowest two sigma levels in cold start RR are changed from 0.999, 0.995 to 0.998, 0.994. No change in HRRR3 runs.

    6 Feb 2008

    RR - new version of WRF code
    The code is switched to beta-v3 for both WPS and WRF. WPS is build to be able to read GRIB2 data from GFS model. For SST - GRIB1 data is still used because the Vtable.SST needs to be updated for use with GRIB2 data. The DFI is turned on using new Hans's code for digital filter.

    17 April 2008

    RR - switch to WPSV3, WRFV3 and WPPV3.
    The code is switched to v3 for both WPS and WRF. The only minor change (in WRFV3) was made to module_diagnostics.F to provide the noise level output in the units we are used to, and with different frequencies for DFI and forecast.
    - DFI is still on.
    - new Grell cumulus scheme - option 5
    - ptop is changed to 10 mb (from 50 mb)

    22 April 2008, 00 UTC

    RR - change in WRFV3
    - Updated phys/module_sf_ruclsm.F. Melting limits (Egglston et al. 1971) are introduced. Result - slower melting rate, especially in cases of warm advection over snow, when differences between skin temperature and first-level atmospheric temperature are significant. Also, the skin temperature is not limited to 273K under such conditions. Similar change to RUCLSM has been made in RUC, and it improved temperature forecast over snow.

    29 April 2008

    HRRR3 - switch to WPSV3, WRFV3 implemented in RR.
    Several changes were made in WRFV3 to provide VIL output (Registry/Registy.EM, dyn_em/solve_em.F, namelist.input)

    15 July 2008, 12 UTC

    RR cold start - changes in WRFV3
    New namelist variables are added to Registry.EM:
    - mphdt - frequency of microphysics calls;
    - time_step_dfi (DFI could have different time step);
    - use_adaptive_time_step_dfi = .false. (no adaptive time step in DFI).
    Changes to the code:
    share/dfi.F - added reading in new namelist variables, and resetting time step to noraml after DFI step is done.
    dyn_em/solve_em.F - added capability to call microphysics driver not every time step.
    Starting 12z 15 July 08 these changes are included into cold-start RR.
    Namelist variables are set to: mphdt=1, time_step_dfi=60, adaptive time step can vary between 60 and 100 s. (Only one run for 12z had diff_6th_opt=1, after than 6th order diffusion is turned off again) Also, quilt I/O is turned on.

    22 August 2008, 12 UTC

    For the 1h cycle, sounding generation changed to correctly read the grib files, which evidently changed format around 12 UTC 8 August 2008. Previously, the grib files incorrectly identified each level as 'hybrid lev n'. Now, the grib levels are correctly identified as 'sigma=0.00nn' where nn is the level number.

    As a result of this change, the RR1h cycle is now once again included in the RAOB verification results available on the web.
    -WRM

    25 August 2008, 12 UTC

    RR 1h cycles uspdated to use WRFV3 and new GSI. Special features of GSI and ARW :

    GSI: March 2008 NAM version with the following changes:
    1) fixed lots of IO problems related to the use of ARW
    2) moisture analysis (use qoption = 2 right now)
    background error variance for qoption =1 (compute_derived.f90 from NCEP)
    turned off relation between temperature and moisture (tv_to_tsen.f90)
    qoption=2 works for ARW
    3) parallel cloud analysis and cloud observation IO
    4) turn off soil moisture and skin temperature updating.
    5) normal wall time for GSI is 720 s with 64 processors
    6) updating SST at 01Z

    ARW: Version 3:
    0) DFI is used (option 3, 40 min backward and 40 min forward)
    1) use quilt to reduce IO time (8 processors)
    2) combined wrf_input and wrfout
    3) have boundary condition problems for dfi in last three cycles. right now use extra boundary fi les to bypass the problem.
    4) normal wall time for ARW is 3200 s with 120 processors
    5) use short DFI integration time step : time_step_dfi = 40,
    6) microphysics step: mphdat = 1
    7) Use new terrain that was smoothed by Joe in south boundary. The run started at 2008080723
    8)Extend relax boundary zone for ARW forecast from 5 to 10 grid