MPAS-Dev/MPAS-Model: MPAS Version 7.0

This major release of MPAS introduces significant new features in the MPAS-Atmosphere model as well as minor fixes and clean-up to the software infrastructure.

Atmosphere

Significant new features or changes to MPAS-Atmosphere v7.0 include:

• The capability to perform limited-area simulations on the surface of the sphere.
• An update to the physics schemes in the 'mesoscale_reference' suite to match the scheme versions in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model v4.0.3; the WSM6 scheme matches WRF v4.1.
• The addition of two new upper absorbing layer formulations.
• An initial relative humidity field that is computed w.r.t. ice for temperatures below freezing, consistent with the computation used for the model output files.
• A fix for the communication of effective radii between the WSM6 and RRTMG schemes when config_microp_re=true.
• The ability to specify an explicit list of model level heights when constructing the vertical coordinate surfaces in the init_atmosphere core.
• A change to the default sources of data for terrain height and land use category to GMTED2010 and MODIS 20-class, respectively.
• Added MODIS-based sources for monthly albedo, monthly vegetation fraction, and maximum snow albedo; these MODIS datasets are now the default.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The updated physics schemes require new look-up tables, in particular, for the Noah land-surface model. The checkout_data_files.sh script that is run at build time should correctly update these tables, but tables in other run directories will need to be manually updated.

Infrastructure

Changes to the shared MPAS infrastructure include:

• A new build target, llvm, to enable building MPAS with the clang and flang compilers.
• Updates to the xlf build target to support building on Linux/POWER systems with the XL compilers.
• Various minor fixes and clean-up.