FLEXPART setup

What Metview version is required?

Metview versions 5.0.0. or later are required.

What FLEXPART version is required?

Only version 902 is supported.

Note

Please note that FLEXPART is not an ECMWF development. FLEXPART is not distributed with Metview, but it has to be installed separately. Please visit the FLEXPART website for installation instructions: https://www.flexpart.eu/.

Compilation

Metview can only be compatible with FLEXPART if the size of the fortran record marker in the unformatted FLEXPART output is set to 4 bytes. Modern fortran compilers has an option to guarantee it. E.g. for gfortran:

-frecord-marker=4

Code modifications

To make FLEXPART work with ECMWF data the following modifications has to be made in the source code:

  • Resolve type mismatch in err.f90 when using a newer gfortran compiler (see flextra ticket49). This involves the modification in err.f90 line 106 and 111:

    ../../../../_images/image12.png

    and line 140 and 145 as well:

    ../../../../_images/image21.png

  • Make FLEXPART work for 137 model levels by modifying line 125 in par_mod.f90:

    ../../../../_images/image31.png

FLEXPART paths

The location of the FLEXPART executable and that of some other files/directories have to be specified for Metview. These locations can be defined either through a set of Metview environment variables or via parameters in flexpart_run() (these latter take precedence). The table below summarises what actually is needed to be set for Metview.

Description

How to get it/them

Metview environment

flexpart_run() parameter

The FLEXPART executable

Need to be built from FLEXPART source

MV_FLEXPART_EXE

user_exe_path

The directory containing the following files: IGBP_int1.dat, OH_7lev_agl.dat, surfdata.t, surfdepo.t

These files are distributed in the FLEXPART source inside folder option

MV_FLEXPART_RESOURCES

user_resources_path

The directory containing the species:

A set of species are distributed in the FLEXPART source inside folder option/SPECIES

MV_FLEXPART_SPECIES

user_species_path

To see the actual values of the Metview environment variables run metview with the -h flag:

metview -h

This will dump all the Metview environment variable to the stdout.