UKCA Training January 2015

NERC have provided funds to run a UKCA training course, which will take place on the 5th-9th January 2015 at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge.

Please note that this course has been funded by NERC and therefore NERC funded PhD students and early career researchers will be prioritised when awarding funded places on this course. Once places have been awarded to NERC students and researchers any remaining places will be allocated to other applicants.

This course introduces new users to the UKCA systems and provides practical experience of setting up and running experiments. Users will be led through a series of exercises designed to encourage best practice and scientific exploitation of the ESM.

What is UKCA?

UKCA is a community chemistry-aerosol-climate model based around the Met Office Unified Model (UM), and is developed jointly by the Met Office and the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds, and Oxford. UKCA will be the atmospheric composition module of the joint NERC-Met Office Earth System Model UKESM1 and is used by the Met Office to provide operational 5-day air quality forecasts for the U.K.

Aims of the Workshop

The UKCA Theory and Practice Workshop will take place in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge designed to give users a good understanding of the theory behind the UKCA code, such as aerosol microphysics, dry and wet deposition, and the chemical mechanisms used, as well as teaching how to use the model on MONSooN and ARCHER. The course will help you become familiar with using the various aspects of the UM that relate directly to UKCA.

After attending this course, you will be proficient with the main components of the UKCA model, and be confident in adapting it for your own purposes.

Aspects of the model that will be covered include:

• Adding new species and reactions
• Changing and adding emissions
• Managing output
• Adding new diagnostics
• Using different configurations of the aerosol scheme
• Prerequisites

You should have some experience in using the UM and the FCM system that is used to manage the model’s code base. If you do not have any UM or FCM experience you should ideally attend the UM training course organised by NCAS-CMS.

How to Apply

There are 20 fully funded places available, with priority given to NERC-funded students and PDRAs, although applications are welcome from any researchers interested in using the UKCA model. Accommodation and reasonable travel expenses will be provided. For more information, please contact Luke Abraham.

If you interested in attending the course please complete the Application Form. Applications will close at 3pm on Friday November 28.

Practicals

The practical element of the course will follow the UKCA Chemistry and Aerosol Tutorials available on this wiki. Before you go through these you will need to have done some prerequisites.