pfull/phalf in ICON loading by ESMValTool

[nchawang]

Hi ESMValTool community!

Greetings, I have only recently started using the ESMValTool and getting the hang of the tool to use it with ICON model outputs, I wanted to use the ESMValTool to asses multiple different runs of ICON model outputs with observations.

I had a small query regarding the ESMValTool in loading ICON model outputs. So it requires pfull/phalf or zg/zghalf values from the model outputs following here. but ICON version I'm using gives out pfull_m/phalf_m and doesn't have a pfull/phalf option in the namelist.

In levante, I am currently using cdo to rename the variables pfull_m/phalf_m to pfull/phalf from the model ouputs before loading it and it's working great! I was just wondering if there is a way to have the ESMValTool to fetch from variables pfull_m/phalf_m instead?

Any help is deeply appreciated
Thanks!

[schlunma]

Hi @nchawang, unfortunately, these names are currently hardcoded:

https://github.com/ESMValGroup/ESMValCore/blob/ad39a99af7222940c45fbc974384f520f64f6fed/esmvalcore/cmor/_fixes/icon/icon.py#L200-L207

so there's no easy way to change this. We could add them to the ICON extra facets to make the configurable in the recipe, but this will take a while until it makes its way into a release (we just froze the code for the next release).

Thus, I fear that you current solution is the best one for now if you want to use the original pressure levels. An alternative would be specify a path to the zg_file in the recipe and let ESMValTool convert altitude to pressure levels, but this is of course only an approximation and only works if the name of this variable is zg.

Just out of curiosity, which ICON version are you using?

[schlunma]

This has now been implemented in ESMValGroup/ESMValCore#2659.

[nchawang]

Hi @schlunma , thankyou for you reply!
I am currently using the ICON-ART configuration (when i grep -r pfull on the src icon it shows up in the aes physics and pfull_m in the iconam, i think that is because of NWP/AES difference? I'm not sure).

Oh great!
(Sorry, side question : I am currently using the already built esmvaltool in levante, do i need to build the ESMValTool separately to exercise this additional facet in the later release or it it updated in the levante as well?)

[schlunma]

I am currently using the ICON-ART configuration (when i grep -r pfull on the src icon it shows up in the aes physics and pfull_m in the iconam, i think that is because of NWP/AES difference? I'm not sure).

Yes, that could be the reason. NWP physics will only be fully supported in ESMValGroup/ESMValCore#2659; the current version of ESMValTool only fully supports the (old) version I know as ICON-A (ECHAM physics).

Oh great! (Sorry, side question : I am currently using the already built esmvaltool in levante, do i need to build the ESMValTool separately to exercise this additional facet in the later release or it it updated in the levante as well?)

No, the module on Levante will always point to a release. Currently this would be v2.11.0, and soon it will be v2.12.0 (which will not include the change from ESMValGroup/ESMValCore#2659 yet). To get a version that includes that, you would need a development installation of ESMValTool (main branch) and ESMValCore (icon-xpp branch). Sorry for the inconvenience!

[nchawang]

Ah okay! thanks! this helps a lot, thanks @schlunma , much appreciated!