FLEXPART Model/BackwardRunsIntro

This is a list of the steps that need to be done for producing the backward model products:

Generate RELEASE files

1. Copy one of the existing script directories, e.g., /nilu2/home/ast/BACKWARD_RUNS/YAK Copy the directory and all subdirectories to your own folder

2. Generate the files necessary for running FLEXPART For this, each data set (e.g., a flight, or station data for a month) must be split into parts of exactly 88 releases (except for the last part, which can be less than 88).

2.1) The generation of files is different for every dataset, e.g., I use different criteria for aircraft flights, ship cruises, lidar columns, or stations, and the data format of the input data (e.g., flight positions may also be different). But there already exist some tools for each of these data sets, e.g., for a station go to directory: GEN_RELEASE/GEN_RELEASE_STATION

2.2) Edit file mk_CONTROL.f and change the hard-coded name, position, and period, compile, and then run the program. It generates a set of CONTROL files, one for each month.

2.3) Compile file gen_release_station.f to get a new a.out file.

2.4) Edit "SCRIPT": SCRIPT runs a.out for every month. It generates COMMAND and RELEASES files in subdirectory data. It also generates a file complete_filelist in the same subdirectory, which will be needed later on. If several datasets are to be created (flights, stations, etc.), then SCRIPT can also be run from a certain number onwards.

2.5) Copy the content of directory data into directory: GEN_RELEASES/ALL_RELEASES. If you only have one station, for instance, you are done. If you have several data sets, copy only the COMMAND and RELEASES files and add the complete_filelist content to a file with the same name in ALL_RELEASES. The datasets must be numbered consecutively.

Run FLEXPART (Updated for version 8.0)

3.a) Copy the FLEXPART archive from SVN: %svn co svn://svn.nilu.no/FLEXPART/trunk/FLEXPART

3.1) Go to directory FLEXPART/options and set up the model domains and resolution in files OUTGRID and OUTGRID_NEST. I suggest OUTGRID to be northern hemispheric or global, and OUTGRID_NEST centered on the area of interest. I normally use only 3 layers.

3.2) THIS IS NO LONGER REQUIRED!! (OUTDATED: Go to directory FLEXPART64_ECMWF_1 and edit the file includepar. Set nzmax, and maxxgrid, maxygrid, maxzgrid, maxxgridn, maxygridn to what is required. Avoid setting this to too large values - it will waste memory. Compile FLEXPART.

3.3) If you also want to make GFS runs, repeat steps 3.1 and 3.2 for the GFS version of FLEXPART. Use the same output domain settings.

3.4) Goto RUN_FLEXPART_SCRIPTS Edit RUN_FLEXPART_BACK_ECMWF_1. You need to change all the pathnames to your current project. Make sure that the output directories do exist! nflightmin and nflightmax are the range of numbers of datasets for which FLEXPART shall be run. Then execute RUN_FLEXPART_BACK_ECMWF_1. FLEXPART should be runnning now.

3.5) Repeat step 3.4, if you want to do also GFS version runs.

4) Wait. The runs will take quite some time.

Generate the webpages

5.1) Generate a directory on the open side of our firewall, e.g. /viper/home/andreas/public_html/YAK Copy description.html, index.html, and nilu_logo.gif from an existing project into YAK. Edit index.html - this shall be a list of all your datasets. Probably also add description.html, if something's different and should be noted.

5.2) Go to MAKE_WEBPAGES and edit the files domain.global, domain.regional, domain.polar to set up plotting domains

5.3) In the same directory, edit file make_webpages Change all directory settings to your project Specify the data set range (nflightmin - nflightmax) Indicate the data source (either ECMWF or GFS) altitude_unit can be m or hPa time_or_alt is normally 1; for lidar-type plots, it should be a different number (this produces vertical profiles instead of time series)

5.4) Execute make_webpages

6) Wait. This will take a while - typically a few hours for a month

7) Check everything is complete and accessible on the webpage

CAVEATS: This is currently set up to use MODIS hot spots. If they are not available, the fire stuff will not work. I will change this to ATSR hot spots; then it should work for the last 10 years, or so, once we have all the ATSR files.

If you only do ECMWF runs, all links to GFS products will not work. We need to change the webpage-producing tool to have a version for one data set only. I already had this but only an old version. We can work on this together.