WRF Model GRAPHIC TOOLS : RIP4 (version 4.2)

Purpose

- Read WRF (and MM5) output files and create plots (meta file format)

- Since version 4.1 RIP4 can be used to plot idealized data (May 2005)
- Version 4.2 was the inclusion of WPS data (Dec 2006)
- With version 4.3, RIP4 can now also process WRF-NMM data. (July 2007)
  If you do not plan on running WRF_NMM, RIP4 version 4.2 is sufficient.

This document is based on RIP4 version 4.2

Documentation

The RIP Users Guide (ripug) is available in the RIP4 tar file in the Doc/ directory, or online at:

http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/docs/ripug.htm

Necessary Software to run Scripts

- Obtain the RIP4 TAR file from the WRF Download page
- NCAR Graphics software

Hardware

The code has been ported to the following machines:

- DEC Alpha
- Linux
- Sun
- SGI
- IBM
- CRAY
- Fujitsu

Steps to Run Scripts

- Unzip and untar the RIP4.TAR.gz file - you will have the following files (   rip and ripdp namelists ;   documentation):

Doc/
Makefile
README
color.tbl
psadilookup.dat
rip_sample.in
ripdp_sample.in
bwave.in
grav2d_x.in
hill2d.in
qss.in
sqx.in
sqy.in
src/
stationlist
tabdiag_sample.in
tserstn.dat

- Make the code:

- Check to see where your netCDF libraries are installed. Then make sure that the file: src/Makefile, has the correct paths to your netCDF libraries, if not edit the Makefile, to correct the paths. If you do not make this change (if needed), RIP4 will assume that your netCDF files are in a standard location, and look for them in /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib.

- typing "make' will produce the following list of compiler options:

make dec      For DEC_ALPHA
make linux    For LINUX
make sun      For SUN
make sun2     For SUN if make sun didn't work
make sun90    For SUN using F90
make sgi      For SGI
make sgi64    For 64-bit SGI
make ibm      For IBM SP2
make cray     For NCAR's Cray
make vpp300   For Fujitsu VPP 300
make vpp5000  For Fujitsu VPP 5000
make          remove object files
make clobber  remove object files and executables

- "make dec" will compile the code for a DEC Alpha computer
- After a successful compilation the following new files will be created:

rip
Post-processing program.
Before using this program, the input data must first be converted to the correct format expected by this program, using the program ripdp_wrf.

ripcomp
This program reads in two rip data files and compare their contents.

ripdp_mm5
RIP Data Preparation program for MM5 input data 

ripdp_wrf
RIP Data Preparation program for WRF input data 

ripinterp
This program reads in model output (in rip-format files) from a coarse domain and from a fine domain, and creates a new file which has the data from the coarse domain file interpolated (bi-linearly) to the fine domain.  The header and data dimensions of the new file will be that of the fine domain, and the case name used in the file name will be the same as that of the fine domain file that was read in.

ripshow
This program reads in a rip data file and prints out the contents of the header record. 

showtraj
Sometimes, you may want to examine the contents of a trajectory position file. Since it is a binary file, the trajectory position file cannot simply be printed out. showtraj, reads the trajectory position file and prints out its contents in a readable form.  When you run showtraj, it prompts you for the name of the trajectory position file to be printed out. 

tabdiag
If fields are specified in the plot specification table for a trajectory calculation run, then RIP produces a .diag file that contains values of those fields along the trajectories. This file is an unformatted Fortran file, so another program is required to view the diagnostics. tabdiag serves this purpose. 

upscale
This program reads in model output (in rip-format files) from a coarse domain and from a fine domain, and replaces the coarse data with fine data at overlapping points. Any refinement ratio is allowed, and the fine domain borders do not have to coincide with coarse domain grid points.

- Run ripdp:

- Suggestion: first make s directory where all the newly created will files can be placed in, as large number of files will be created:
mkdir DATA

- ripdp_wrf   [-n namelist_file]   casename   [basic|all]  
                  data_file_1 data_file_2 data_file_3 ...
  ripdp_wrf -n ripdp_sample.in DATA/real basic
             ../DATA/real/wrfout_d01_2000-01-24_12:00:00
             >& ripdp_log

- Running ripdp for idealized data works exactly the same way

- Run rip:

- First set the environment variable:
  setenv RIP_ROOT your_rip4_directory

- rip   [-f] model_case_name   rip_case_name
  rip -f DATA/real rip_sample

- If this is successful, the following files will be created:

  rip_sample.cgm : gmeta file
  rip_sample.out  : log file - view this file if a problem occurred

- NOTE:The way levels are referred to the the namelist
  (.in files) has changed from "b1" (bottom 1) to "1fb"
  (1 from bottom).
  Your old namelist files will still work provided you
  make this one change.
  (new since the May 2005 - version 4.1 release)

- Running rip for idealized data works exactly the same way
  For easy of use, some sample namelist files (ie, bwave.in)
  have been provided

- To view the meta file, type:

      idt  rip_sample.cgm

- Examples plots:

real output data

Idealized data plots:
     bwave
     grav2d_x
     hill2d
     qss
     sqx
     sqy

- Miscellaneous:

To convert NCGM files to GIF images, a very handy tool is the ncgm2gif script

               ncgm2gif -res 500x500 -nomerge test.cgm

Will convert all images in test.cgm to testxxx.gif