[Ncep.list.wwatch3.discussion-group] WAVEWATCH III, Nov 12th meeting notes

[Arun Chawla - NOAA Federal]

WAVEWATCH III Meeting Notes -- Nov 12th 2014

Thank you for attending the WAVEWATCH III meeting yesterday. Big thanks to
UKMO and NRL for their presentations and discussions. The meeting bullets
are outlined below


   -

   UKMO gave a presentation on the SMC grid option that has been developed
   for WAVEWATCH III. This is a great option for those who still want to use
   regular grids but also want to take advantage of local enhancement. Time
   steps are also locally refined and modelors are not limited to having
   globally small time steps, which can be a big saving. This grid type still
   relies on using the switch option SMC and there is also an ARC switch to
   deal with singularity at the North Pole. (All other grids are defined by a
   grid type variable). UKMO has plans to move the SMC option to a grid type
   variable. Till then SMC grid can only be used as a single grid option.
   -

   UKMO also talked about some post processing tools that they have
   developed for working with SMC grids. These tools are not yet in the
   WAVEWATCH III repository. There was some talk about merging some tools with
   the ones that are already in the repository. This is something that UKMO
   will explore and when the tools reach a level of maturity that they are
   comfortable with then it will be added to the repository. Till then if
   anyone wants to explore using the SMC grid as an option in WW-III modeling
   please contact Jian-Guo (jian-guo.li at metoffice.gov.uk) or Chris Bunny (
   christopher.bunney at metoffice.gov.uk)
   -

   There were also two technical details on the structure of WW-III led by
   NRL
   -

      The first was the ability to use macros with pre processors in
      WAVEWATCH III. Tim Campbell has developed this capability and
has set up a
      sample macros.h that will be included with every code. A sample macro for
      checking allocation status has been created and is checked in
w3gdatmd.ftn.
      Since this feature does not break any of the existing approach of using
      switches, the macros option will be merged into the trunk to provide this
      feature for people to start using. The long term aim is to see if we can
      replace switches with macros and available preprocessing capability in
      compilers.
      -

      The second discussion was on a proposed change to ww3_multi.inp and
      ww3_shel.inp. For the longest time the forcing files for the wave model
      have been limited to a handful of variables (winds, air - sea temp
      difference, water levels, currents etc.), which could be set by a simple
      array of logical variables. But with te recent developments in model
      capability associated with wave - mud and wave - ice
interactions more and
      more input field properties have to be defined which makes the current
      capability unwieldy. Tim and Erick have proposed an option using
namelists.
      We shall be having that discussion by email separately to see
what the user
      community feels about it. Please take part in that discussion. Whatever
      option we choose will involve significant changes to the input file
      structure and thus will impact all (your own branches as well as
having to
      change all the regtests). So your input is very important, before we
      proceed irrevocably down this path


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Arun Chawla
Waves Team Lead
Marine Modelling & Analysis Branch
Room 2101
National Center for Weather & Climate Prediction
5830 University Research Court
College Park, MD 20740
Ph: 301-683-3740
Fx: 301-683-3703
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