3DVAR Tutorial

b. The 3DVAR Observation Preprocessor (3DVAR_OBSPROC)

(06/09/2003)

By this stage you have successfully downloaded the test data for the tutorial and are ready to run 3DVAR observation preprocessor (3DVAR_OBSPROC). If not, return to a. Downloading Test Data.

At any stage, to consult documentation, you may like to return to the 3DVAR web-page. Chapter 3 of the 3DVAR Technical Note describes 3DVAR_OBSPROC in more detail.

1. Accessing and compiling the 3DVAR_OBSPROC code

First, go to your working directory and download the 3DVAR_OBSPROC from NCAR's ftp site. Once you have it on your machine, type the following to unzip and untar it:

gunzip 3DVAR_OBSPROC.tar.gz

tar -xvf 3DVAR_OBSPROC.tar

After this, you should see a directory 3DVAR_OBSPROC/ created in your working directory. If so remove the .tar file

rm 3DVAR_OBSPROC.tar

and cd to this directory:

cd 3DVAR_OBSPROC

Read the README file. To compile 3DVAR_OBSPROC, type

make

Once this is complete (a minute or less on most machines), you can check for the presence of the 3DVAR_OBSPROC executable by issuing the command (from the 3DVAR_OBSPROC directory)

ls –l src/3dvar_obs.exe

-rwxr-xr-x   1 mmm01  system    591184 May 29  2003 src/3dvar_obs.exe*

2. Running 3DVAR_OBSPROC

OK, so now you’ve compiled 3DVAR_OBSPROC. Before running the 3dvar_obs.exe, create the namelist file namelist.3dvar_obs and edit (see README.namelist for details);

cp namelist.3dvar_obs.sample namelist.3dvar_obs

then edit namelist.3dvar_obs.

In this tutorial, all you need to change are the locations of the observation (ob.little_r) and first guess (fg) files, and the analysis time (which for this case is 12 UTC 19 August 1999).

To run the 3DVAR_OBSPROC, type

3dvar_obs.exe >& 3dvar_obs.out

Take a look at the 3dvar_obs.out file to acquaint yourself with details of the run.

3. Looking at 3DVAR_OBSPROC output.

When the 3dvar_obs.exe  was completed normally, you’ll have an observation data file: obs_gts.3dvar, which will be used as the input to 3dvar. Before running 3dvar, there is a utility to look at the data distribution for each type of observations.

1) cd MAP_plot;

2) Copy the proper configure.user.???? to configure.user for your computer system;

3) Modify the shell script Map.csh to set the time window and resulted OBS data  file name: obs_gts.3dvar including path;

4) Type

Map.csh

5) When the job has completed, you’ll have a gmeta file gmeta.{analysis_time}

which contains plots of data distribution for each type of observations contained in the OBS data file: obs_gts.3dvar.  To view this, type

idt gmeta.1999081912

4. Saving necessary file for 3DVAR and clean 3DVAR_OBSPROC

In this tutorial, we are storing data in a directory defined by the environment variable $DAT_DIR.  Having successfully created your own observation file (obs_gts.3dvar), copy it to $DAT_DIR using the command (from 3DVAR_OBSPROC directory)

mv obs_gts.3dvar ${DAT_DIR}/ob

Finally, to clean up the 3DVAR_OBSPROC directory, type

make clean

5. What next?

OK, you’ve now created the observation file and looked at some plots of observations, now you’re ready to move on to 3DVAR:

c) Setting up 3DVAR


Miscellanies:

1)      When you run 3dvar_obs.exe, and you did not obtain the file obs_gts.3dvar, please check 3dvar_obs.out file to see where the program aborted. Usually there is information in this file to tell you what is wrong;

2)      From the *.diag files, you may find which observation report caused the job failed;

3)      In most cases, the job failed was caused by incorrect input files names, or the specified analysis time, time window, etc. in namelist.3dvar_obs.

4)      If users still cannot figure out the troubles, please inform us and pass us your input files including the namelist file, and printed file 3dvar_obs.out.


Trouble Shooting:

1.  If you have questions, ask mesouser.


 

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