Confusion about UWINDC/VWINDC in METDOT3D

MCIP
1

Hi,
I’m calculating wind speed for every layer but I’m confused about the dimensions of variables UWINDC/VWINDC in METDOT3D.
Let the row of METCRO3D be x and the column of METCRO3D be y.
So the spatial dimension of UWINDC/VWINDC in METDOT3D is (x+1)*(y+1). However, CMAQ uses Arakawa C grids and UWINDC/VWINDC represent U/V-comp. of true wind at W-E/S-N faces. So I think UWINDC should have x rows and y+1 columns and VWINDC should have x+1 rows and y columns, which contradicts the dimension in METDOT3D.

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Does anyone know about this?

Thanks

2

@pengzimu –

You are mostly correct about the actual dimensions of UWINDC and VWINDC. They are true Arakawa C fields with dimensions UWINDC(1:ncols+1,1:nrows,nlays) and VWINDC(1:ncols,1:nrows+1,nlays). See Figure 2b, which you posted from Otte & Pleim (2010), where yellow dots are UWINDC and red dots are VWINDC. However, one of the constraints of I/O API files is that the dimensions of all of the variables in a given file must be identical. Accordingly, all of the output fields in METDOT3D have dimensions of (1:ncols+1,1:nrows+1,1:nlays).

Rather than create new and separate files specifically for the Arakawa C staggered fields, I stored them in METDOT3D for convenience. The “extra” row of UWINDC and “extra” column of VWINDC are each filled with data persisted from the last row/column, and those data should not be used. Including the data in the file is benign, as long as you are only reading the chunk of the array with valid data. The dummy data have actual values rather than XMISS3 (or similar large number meaning “missing”) so that the visualization programs do not reflexively create garbage.

Hope this helps.
–Tanya

1 Like
3

Thanks a lot for your explanation!

4

Hello, have you solved the questions？i also need to calculate the wind speed in each layer

5

@UCASY –

The solution to the question is posted above. Are you asking the same question as the original poster, or are you asking how to calculate wind speed?

–Tanya

6

Dear Tanya, in the morning, i am confused about the calculation method of wind speed in mass point, i have solved the question, thanks again.

7

Hi,
To calculate the wind speed at grid center, I first took the average of U/V-comp. of true wind at W-E/S-N faces as U/V-comp. of the wind at grid center. Then I added the square of the U/V-components and took the square root of the result as wind speed. I am not sure if this is a correct way to calculate the wind speed at grid center with Arakawa C grids.

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yes ,i am the same with you method, my qq number is 981264917, would you mind take a further talk about the method?
—gy