The OpenIFS team at ECMWF are pleased to announce the release of OpenIFS 43r3v1. This version is based on IFS Cycle 43R3, the ECMWF operational model from 11/July/2017 to 5/June/2018.
OpenIFS 43r3v1 is a significant and extensive upgrade from the previous OpenIFS 40r1 model releases. It incorporates: a new model grid, the so-called cubic octahedral grid; a new radiation code, ecRad; major updates to the model physics parametrizations.
Anyone wishing to use OpenIFS must have a OpenIFS license (see the list of Licensed Institutes).
Please see the OpenIFS 43r3v1 Release Notes for full details about this model release.
Please note!
OpenIFS 43r3v1 will not produce the same results as the previous releases based on 40r1.
Initial files for OpenIFS 40r1 cannot be used with OpenIFS 43r3 due to the addition of the Lake model.
A new set of IFS climatology and data files ('ifsdata') are required for OpenIFS 43r3.
OpenIFS 43r3v1 no longer support grib-api, the newer ecCodes GRIB library from ECMWF is required.
OpenIFS 43r3v1 also includes an interface to the XIOS parallel I/O server as a user contribution. This optional facility allows for improved I/O performance as well as direct netCDF output from OpenIFS. As this is a new feature, some aspects are still in development. The OpenIFS team would like to thank colleagues at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and the Netherlands eScience Center for their development of the XIOS interface.
The OpenIFS 43r3 User Guide has been updated for OpenIFS 43r3.
Due to problems of resources in the OpenIFS team, the release of OpenIFS 43r3 was unfortunately much delayed. We are immensely grateful to those early users who provided feedback on the model testing and for the patience of everyone else!
Support
Please report any queries or problems with this release to either the public OpenIFS User Forums (preferred) or privately to openifs-support@ecmwf.int.