Forcing and External Data

Owned by Burkhardt Rockel (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 27, 2023 by Beate Geyer
3 min read

Forcing Data

Forcing data in SPICE have to be netCDF (standard CF formatted) in the caf-files data form. These caf-files are the same as those used as input for the INT2LM in the COSMO-CLM starter package. Several datasets are available at DKRZ for members of CLM-community ( caf-datasets).



External Data

Before running a simulation you need files holding grid description, external data (parameters for orography, land use, soil, etc.), and supplemental data for the radiation module (e.g. greenhouse gas time series). An example has already been copied to your computer system into the directory ${SPDIR}/data/rcm if you followed the installation procedure. 



File example

Description

Comments



File example

Description

Comments




Radiation module supplements

greenhouse_gases

Directory with green house concentrations

Data for the following Scenarios are available: RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5, SSP126, SSP245, SSP245(4xCO2), SSP370, SSP585, 1pctCO2

icon-nwp/externals/ecrad/data

Directory holding supplemental radiation data. Set by the environment variable ECRADDIR in job_settings (must include full path)

For the ECRAD radiation code inwp_radiation = 4. Data are given in the ICON source code directory under externals/ecrad/data. 









Name mapping







dict.latbc

Mapping of variable names in boundary files to internal names.
Namelist: limarea_nml
Namelist Parameter: latbc_varnames_map_file

Dictionary file which maps internal variable names onto  NetCDF var names. This is a text file with two columns separated by whitespace, where left column: ICON variable name, right column: netCDF var name. This file is not needed for ICON into ICON nesting.

mapping_to_cosmo.csv

Mapping of out variable names. Set by the environment variable OUTPUT_MAPPING_FILE in job_settings (must include full path)

Must be in csv format 











Domain settings







europe044_DOM01.nc

Grid description of the ICON-CLM grid. Set by the environment variable LAM_GRID in job_settings (must include full path).

Can be created by the  ICON Webservice 

europe044_DOM01.parent.nc

Grid description of an imaginary parent ICON grid, needed for the radiation. Set by the environment variable PARENT_GRID in job_settings (must include full path).

Can be created by the  ICON Webservice 

external_parameter_icon_europe044_DOM01_tiles.nc

File holding the external parameters on the ICON grid. Set by the environment variable EXTPAR in job_settings (must include full path).

Can be created by the  ICON Webservice 

europe044_rotated_grid.nc

File holding the description of the rotated grid onto which the ICON output is remapped in the post processing script. Set by the environment variable TARGET_GRID in job_settings (must include full path).

Can be taken from WebPEP or COSMO-CLM  *c.nc output. It must contain at least HSURF and FR_LAND, rlon, rlat, lon, lat, rotated_pole. You need to perform cfu add_vertices ncfilename to your file to add vertices for the CDO remapping.

Names in italic are just examples. The user can define them.

OUTPUT_MAPPING_FILE format

The file is in csv format and can be created by any application that supports this format, e.g. Microsoft Excel. The delimiter between fields has to be a comma. Here comes an example snippet:

ICON name,Output name,A Output name,height,cell_methods,standard_name,A standard_name,A units aer_bc ,AER_BC ,-,0,point,-,-,- aer_du ,AER_DUST ,-,0,point,-,-,- topography_c ,HSURF ,-,0,point,surface_altitude,-,- lai ,LAI ,-,0,point,leaf_area_index,-,- lhfl_s ,LHFL_S ,ALHFL_S,0,point,surface_downward_latent_heat_flux,surface_downward_latent_heat_flux;W m-2 pres ,P ,-,0,point,air_pressure,-,- qhfl_s ,QHFL_S ,AEVAP_S,0,point,surface_water_evaporation_flux,water_evaporation_amount,kg m-2 t_2m ,T_2M ,-,2,point,air_temperature,-,- tot_prec ,TOT_PREC ,-,0,sum ,precipitation_amount,-,-

In Excel etc. it looks similar to the table below. In the columns starting with "A" names for the accumulated or averaged versions of the variable are described. The averaged "A" variables are created by setting operation='mean' in the according namelist stream in ICON.

ICON name

Output name

A Output name

height in m

cell_methods

standard_name

A standard_name

A units

ICON name

Output name

A Output name

height in m

cell_methods

standard_name

A standard_name

A units

aer_bc

AER_BC

-

0

point

-

-

-

aer_du

AER_DUST

-

0

point

-

-

-

topography_c

HSURF

-

0

point

surface_altitude

-

-

lai

LAI

-

0

point

leaf_area_index

-

-

lhfl_s

LHFL_S

ALHFL_S

0

point

surface_downward_latent_heat_flux

surface_downward_latent_heat_flux

W m-2

pres

P

-

0

point

air_pressure

-

-

qhfl_s

QHFL_S

AEVAP_S

0

point

surface_water_evaporation_flux

water_evaporation_amount

kg m-2

t_2m

T_2M

-

2

point

air_temperature

-

-

tot_prec

TOT_PREC

-

0

sum

precipitation_amount

-

-



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