WRF Model GRAPHIC TOOLS : RIP4 (version 4.4)

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)
- Only a coupel of small bug fixes when into rip4.4 (April 2008)

 

Documentation

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

http://www.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 (pgi and intel compilers). MAC (xlf and absoft compilers), SUN, SGI, IBM, CRAY and Fujitsu computers.

Steps to Run Scripts

- Unzip and untar the RIP4.TAR.gz file - you will have the following files:

CHANGES
Doc/
Makefile
README
color.tbl
psadilookup.dat
sample_infiles/    
   (sample scripts moved under this directory in version 4.3)
src/
stationlist
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 - with PGI compiler
make intel    For LINUX - with INTEL compiler
make mac_xlf  For MAC_OS_X with Xlf Compiler
make mac      For MAC_OS_X with Absoft
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 linux " will compile the code for a Linux computer running PGI
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_wrfarw
RIP Data Preparation program for WRF-ARW input data 

ripdp_wrfnmm
RIP Data Preparation program for WRF-NMM 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:

ripdp is actually 3 programs. One for MM5 data (ripdp_mm5), and one each for WRF-ARW (ripdp_wrfarw) and WRF-NMM data (ripdp_wrfnmm). ripdp_wrfarw is used for idealized data cases.

The basic ripdp command for all three prgrams is the same:

ripdp   [-n namelist_file]   casename   [basic|all]  
                  data_file_1 data_file_2 data_file_3 ...

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

Using the namelist_file is optional. For WRF-ARW, the basic funciton of the namelist_file is to control times to process. For WRF-NMM is also controls the projection of the post-processed data.

Example running ripdp for WRF-ARW:
  ripdp_wrfarw    RIPDP/wrfarw   all
  ../WRFV2/run/wrfout_d01_2000-01-24_12:00:00
  >&   ripdp_log

View the ripdp_log to make sure the data pre-processing step was sucessful.

- Run rip:

First set the environment variables RIP_ROOT & NCARG_ROOT:
   setenv RIP_ROOT your_rip4_directory
   setenv NCARG_ROOT /usr/local/ncarg
       (this is typically the location of the NCAR Graphics
       libaries, but you need to check if this is the case
       on your computer)

The basic rip command looks like this:
   rip   [-f]   casename   rip_namelist

First create/edit the rip_namelist to setup the graphics you want to produce. A good example to start with is the rip_sample.in namelist in the sample_infiles/ directory.

Suggestion: Copy the sample_infiles/rip_sample.in file to your RIP4/ directory and edit it for your case.

For detailed explanations of the variables and fields that can be set in the rip_namelist, refer to the RIP4 users document.

Example running rip:
   rip -f RIPDP/wrfarw 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

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

- 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