UKCA Release Jobs

This page contains documentation on UKCA standard jobs that have not yet been released, but will be soon.

Getting Started

PUMA

The UK Met Office's Unified Model (UM) is provided for the NERC community from NCAS Computational Modelling Services via the PUMA (Providing UM Access) resource. To use UKCA you must have an account on PUMA. To obtain one, please go to the NCAS-CMS PUMA page.

FCM

The UM uses code management software, built around subversion, called FCM (Flexible Configuration Management). If you have not used the UM with FCM, we recommend first familiarising yourself with the system, by doing the UM FCM Tutorial. As well as being a good introduction to FCM and the UM User Interface (UMUI), it will also teach you how to set-up some configuration files that will be needed in the day-to-day running of the UM and UKCA.

Standard Release Jobs

UKCA can be configured through the UMUI, via it's own configuration panel. This mostly controls all the options required to run UKCA, although some extra changes have been made with hand-edits. To make it easy to get started with UKCA, several standard jobs have been created at various resolutions. To get started with UKCA, it should be a simple matter to take a copy of the UKCA job that you wish to run, changing a few user-specific options, and submitting the job.

To run a UKCA standard job, please take a copy of one of the jobs listed below. If you need to make code changes, we suggest making a new FCM branch, and merging in the UKCA branch which is used in the job that you are taking, then using your branch instead.

Available release jobs are:

UM Version	UMUI Job-ID	Climate Model	Horizontal Resolution	Vertical Levels	Model Top	Scheme Used
7.3	HECToR: MONSooN:	QESM-A	N48 (2.5°×3.75°)	L60	~84km	Tropospheric Chemistry with Isoprene
7.3		HadGEM3-A r2.0	N96 (1.25°×1.875°)	L63	~40km	Tropospheric Chemistry with Isoprene
7.3	HECToR: MONSooN:	QESM-A	N48	L60	~84km	Stratospheric Chemistry
7.3		HadGEM3-A r2.0	N96	L85	85km	Stratospheric Chemistry
7.3		QESM-A	N48	L60	~84km	Simple Tropospheric Chemistry with MODE Aerosol
7.3		HadGEM3-A r2.0	N96	L38	~40km	Simple Tropospheric Chemistry with MODE Aerosol
7.3		HadGEM3-A r2.0	N96	L38	~40km	Simple Tropospheric Chemistry with MODE Aerosol (Nudged)

Required UMUI Changes

Before submitting a UKCA job, you must first alter several options in the UMUI:

• User-id, Mail-id (email address), and Tic-Code:
  Model Selection -> User Information and Target Machine -> General Details
  The user-id is your username on the target machine (i.e. HECToR).
  The tic-code will be the HECToR charging code, e.g. n02-chem. This code can be found by logging into the HECToR SAFE pages, and viewing your account information.
• Target machine root extract directory (UM_ROUTDIR):
  Model Selection -> FCM Configuration -> FCM Extract and Build directories and Output levels
  This needs to be the full path to your working directory on the target machine (i.e. HECToR).

Optional UMUI Changes

As well as the required changes above, you may also want to change the following, depending on your experiments:

• Model start date and run length:
  Model Selection -> Input/Output Control and Resources -> Start Date and Run Length Options
  NOTE: For Stratospheric Chemistry, the CFC and other long-lived trace gas concentrations will be highly dependent on the date - you will need to think about your chemical tracer initial conditions if you change the start date of a Stratospheric Chemistry run.
• Reference date for meaning:
  Model Selection -> Atmosphere -> Control -> Post processing, Dumping & Meaning -> Dumping and meaning
  If you have changed the start date (above), you may need to change the reference date. If you do not do this, climate meaning may not work. Climate means will only be produced for a date after the reference date.
• Archiving:
  Model Selection -> Post Processing -> Main Switch + General Questions
  Currently archiving is switched ON for most jobs.
  On HECToR all model output will placed in a directory called archive which is a sub-directory of your run directory.
  ON MONSooN, all data is copied to /nerc/PROJECT/USERID/JOBID.
  Superseded model restart dumps will be deleted.
• UKCA Surface Emissions (as user single-level ancillary file):
  Model Selection -> Atmosphere -> Ancillary and input data files -> Climatologies and potential climatologies -> User single-level ancillary files and fields
  The emissions data-sets used are ones that have been used in previous studies, and represent the present day. You may wish to change these emissions - to do this we recommend the use of XAncil, provided by NCAS-CMS.
• UKCA 3D Emissions (as user multi-level ancillary file):
  Model Selection -> Atmosphere -> Ancillary and input data files -> Climatologies and potential climatologies -> User multi-level ancillary files and fields
  The standard aircraft emissions data-set comes from the Aero2K project, and represents the year 2000. You may wish to change these emissions - to do this we recommend the use of XAncil, provided by NCAS-CMS.
• Tracer Initial Conditions:
  Model Selection -> Atmosphere -> STASH -> Initialisation of User Prognostics
  The table in this UMUI panel gives a listing of all the initial conditions of the STASH items defined by the user. They are given a STASH code, which the UM uses to identify the field. The UKCA tracers have a 5 digit code beginning at 34001 and ending at 34150, although 34149 and 34150 need to be initialised to zero. Several (or all) tracers will be initialised to some initial conditions, contained in the file listed by each tracer.

The settings in the UMUI UKCA panel have been chosen for that specific chemistry/aerosol scheme, and choosing other options may not work. If you require extra functionality, please contact Luke Abraham to check on the current code status.

Tropospheric Chemistry with Isoprene

Comparison of Tropospheric Chemistry with Isoprene in a number of model resolutions and UM versions.

This scheme using the FCM branch fcm:um_br/dev/luke/VN7.3_UKCA_CheM at revision 5695.

Stratospheric Chemistry

Ozone column in Dobson Units (DU) calculated from a UM7.3 N48L60 UKCA-StratChem run using interactive UKCA ozone in the UM radiation scheme. This is the mean of 21 model years representing 1990.

Useful Links

• NCAS-CMS
• Subversion (SVN)
• Flexible Configuration Management (FCM)
• UM FCM Tutorial
• HECToR