WRF Pre-processing System Version 4.0

This release includes the following notable changes:

• Introduction of a 'lowres' option for geog_data_res to select coarse resolution
  (typically, 5-arc-minutes) sources for all mandatory static fields. This is
  useful in educational contexts or when the size of the geographical datasets
  must be minimized, e.g., when teaching with WRF/WPS in a Docker container or
  in the cloud.

• New GEOGRID.TBL entry for a pre-computed urban fraction field (FRC_URB2D) based
  on 30-meter NLCD 2011 data.

• A change in the default source of data for the MAXSNOALB and ALBEDO12M fields.
  The new defaults are MODIS-based and higher resolution (ALBEDO12M is based on MODIS product MCD43C3, and MAXSNOALB, 0.05 MODIS BRDF product)

• Two fixes for numerical inaccuracies in the polar stereographic projection.

• A new namelist option for ungrib, pmin, to specify the minimum pressure to
  extract from isobaric datasets.

• A combined Vtable for all CFSR/CFSv2 data, both pressure-level and surface
  fields (Vtable.CFSR).

• Added support for NCAR RDA's ECMWF "ds113.1" dataset.

• Added support for FV3GFS GRIB data.

• Generally, in the v4.0 release of the WPS, there is a move towards a model
  for handling geographical static fields in which all static fields that are
  not required by the default WRF namelist are optional from the viewpoint of
  geogrid.

  • Datasets that were previously mandatory but that are now optional:
    VAR_SSO and LAKE_DEPTH.

Note: There are now three types of downloads for the static, geographical data:
(1) Download the "full-resolution" sources for all default, mandatory fields.
Use this download for all simulations where accuracy is important.

(2) Download the "low-resolution" sources for all mandatory fields.
Use this download for testing and educational purposes.

(3) Downloads for individual, optional geographical fields.
Obtain these datasets as needed by different model options.

WRF Pre-processing System Version 3.9.1

Version 3.9.1 of the WRF Pre-Processing System (WPS) was released on 17 August 2017.

Improvement and Bug Fixes

Ungrib:

• Limit the post-2017 NCEP GFS soil moisture to a maximum of .468. Values larger than .468 are actually flags for land ice points and should be missing, but missing values cause metgrid to run very slowly. This change is more consistent with ungrib versions prior to 3.9.0.1.
• Fixed an issue with PGI compiler when compiling updated g2 libraries.
• Updated to handle new (2017) GFS data (3.9.0.1)
• Updated ncarg_libs to be consistent with recent versions of NCAR Graphics (3.9.0.1)
• Fixed a few small things in the clean script (3.9.0.1)
• g2 library is updated to match NCEP's g2lib.v3.1 (3.9.0.1)

Geogrid:

• Two datasets from underground water were removed (not used).

Metgrid:

• For MPAS input, only process fields with METGRID.TBL entries.

WRF Pre-processing System Version 3.9.0.1

Version 3.9.0.1 of the WRF Pre-Processing System (WPS) was released on 13 July 2017.

Updates:

Ungrib:

• Beginning 1200 UTC, July 19, NCEP upgraded GFS data, as well as several output datasets provided on its ftp site. The updates, which include adding missing values to land fields (such as soil temperature, moisture and snow etc.), and changing the landsea mask field, will break the WRF model if you are not using an updated version of WPS. It was necessary to update the ungrib program for compatibility with this new data. If it is preferred to use older versions of WPS, it is still necessary to use the ungrib.exe program, new Vtable.GFS, and METGRID.TBL.ARW from this tar file.

WRF Pre-processing System Version 3.9

Version 3.9 of the WRF Pre-Processing System (WPS) was released on 17 April 2017.

New features and Updates:

• The default data source for the LANDUSEF/LU_INDEX fields have been updated in v3.9 for ARW:
• LU_INDEX/LANDUSEF are now derived from a variant of the 20-class, 30-arc-second MODIS data with an algorithmically added lake category, which is different from the 21-class MODIS dataset available in v3.8 and earlier with lakes;
• Soil fields SOILCTOP and SOILCBOT are now interpolated from 30-arc-second data, rather than 2-arc-minute data.

Geogrid:

• Geogrid can now handle large (> 2GB) tiles of static data;
• Logic to prevent accidental combination of land use datasets that use different classification schemes (Thanks to Brian Reen, US Army Research Lab);
• Add capability to explicitly not use optional static datasets (Thanks to Brian Reen, US Army Research Lab);
• Added GEOGRID.TBL.ARW.noamp specifically for use when creating domains for simulations in which a user will activate the crop or groundwater modules in the Noah-MP scheme.

Ungrib:

• Added capability to vertically interpolate to new levels in isobaric datasets (Thanks to Brian Reen, US Army Research Lab);
• introduce the capability to process rotated lat-lon RAP/HRRR data.

Metgrid:

• WRF simulations can now be initialized from MPAS output via a new capability in the metgrid program to read and interpolate netCDF MPAS output on the native, unstructured MPAS mesh;
• introduce the capability to process rotated lat-lon RAP/HRRR data.

New terrestrial data sets:

• 30-arc-second, 16-category BNU soil category datasets, selectable by prefixing geog_data_res with 'bnu_soil_30s+'

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug in computation of df/dx fields (Thanks to Branko Kosovic of NCAR).
• The v3.8.1 bugfix for processing newer NCEP NAM data that use complex packing has been included in the v3.9 source.