1 The average_be utility may be used to interpolate global background error
2 statistics to any regional domain. Average_be takes as input the global
3 background error files (there will exist as many of these files as there are
4 latitude bins, each file named be.dat.N, with N the bin number) and a first-
5 guess, i.e., wrfinput, file for the regional domain. The first-guess file
6 provides the interpolation routines with information on the geographic
7 location of the domain, which is used in the horizontal interpolation; also,
8 the first-guess file provides information required for vertical interpolation,
9 namely, the mean surface pressure, model top pressure, and eta values of each
10 vertical level. Since the global background error statistics are regarded as
11 relatively invariant, the eta values and model top pressure of the global
12 forecasts used in to compute the global statistics are hardwired into the
13 source code, but maybe changed should the need arise. After running the
14 software, a regional BE file is produced; this BE file may then be used with
15 WRF-Var for the regional domain in question.
20 The BE interpolation software is built using the UNIX make utility. In order to
21 compile the software, the user must first edit the Makefile in the code
22 directory; the following variables must be set:
24 * FC - the Fortran compiler to be used
25 * CPP - the full path of the C preprocessor for use in pre-processing
27 * FCFLAGS - flags to pass to the Fortran compiler; these should include a
28 flag to specify that Fortran files are written using 'free form', a
29 flag to specify 8-byte real values as the default, and a flag, if
30 applicable, to cause unformatted reads and writes to use big-endian
32 * LDFLAGS - any additional flags that should be passed to the compiler when
33 linking the final executable
35 After editing the above-mentioned variables at the top of the Makefile, the
36 user may simply type 'make' on the command line in the source code directory;
37 the resulting executable, average_be.exe, is the program for interpolating BE
43 The average_be utility reads two parameters from a Fortran namelist contained
44 in the file namelist.average_be. This namelist, &nl_average_be, contains the
47 * nbins - an integer specifying the number of latitude bins in the global
48 statistics; there should exist files be.dat.N, where 1 ¡Ø N ¡Ø nbins,
49 and each be.dat.N file contains global BE statistics for the N-th
50 latitude bin; bins are numbered from south to north
51 * fg_file_name - the path of the WRF first-guess file of the regional domain
53 Having edited namelist.average_be, the user may execute the average_be.exe
54 program to produce a regional background error file, named be.dat, in the
55 current working directory. This be.dat file may then be used with WRF-Var for
56 the regional domain in question.