6.21.2 Key subroutines and parameters

FRAMEWORK
GCHEM_OPTIONS.h includes the compiler options to be used in any experiment. For instance #define ALLOW_CFC allows the CFC code to be run. An important compiler option is #define GCHEM_SEPARATE_FORCING which determined how and when the tracer forcing is applied (see discussion on Forcing below). There are further runtime parameters set in data.gchem and kept in common block GCHEM.h. These runtime options include:
tIter0 which is the integer timestep when the tracer experiment is initialized. If nIter0 tIter0 then the tracers are initialized to zero or from initial files. If nIter0 tIter0 then tracers (and previous timestep tendency terms) are read in from a the ptracers pickup file. Note that tracers of zeros will be carried around if nIter0 tIter0.
nsubtime is the integer number of extra timesteps required by the tracer experiment. This will give a timestep of deltaTtracernsubtime for the dependencies between tracers. The default is one.
File names - these are several filenames than can be read in for external fields needed in the tracer forcing - for instance wind speed is needed in both DIC and CFC packages to calculate the air-sea exchange of gases. Not all file names will be used for every tracer experiment.

INITIALIZATION
The values set at runtime in data.gchem are read in using gchem_readparms.F which is called from packages_readparms.F. This will include any external forcing files that will be needed by the tracer experiment.

There are two routine used to initialize parameters and fields needed by the experiment packages. These are gchem_init_fixed.F which is called from packages_init_fixed.F, and gchem_init_vari.F called from packages_init_variable.F. The first should be used to call a subroutine specific to the tracer experiment which sets fixed parameters, the second should call a subroutine specific to the tracer experiment which sets (or initializes) time fields that will vary with time.

LOADING FIELDS
External forcing fields used by the tracer experiment are read in by a subroutine (specific to the tracer experiment) called from gchem_fields_load.F. This latter is called from forward_step.F.

FORCING
Tracer fields are advected-and-diffused by the ptracer package. Additional changes (e.g. surface forcing or interactions between tracers) to these fields are taken care of by the gchem interface. For tracers that are essentially passive (e.g. CFC's) but may have some surface boundary conditions this can easily be done within the regular tracer timestep. In this case gchem_calc_tendency.F is called from forward_step.F, where the reactive (as opposed to the advective diffusive) tendencies are computed. These tendencies, stored on the 3D field gchemTendency, are added to the passive tracer tendencies gPtr in gchem_add_tendency.F, which is called from ptracers_forcing.F. For tracers with more complicated dependencies on each other, and especially tracers which require a smaller timestep than deltaTtracer, it will be easier to use gchem_forcing_sep.F which is called from forward_step.F. There is a compiler option set in GCHEM_OPTIONS.h that determines which method is used: #define GCHEM_SEPARATE_FORCING does the latter where tracers are forced separately from the advection-diffusion code, and #undef GCHEM_SEPARATE_FORCING includes the forcing in the regular timestepping.

DIAGNOSTICS
This package also also used the passive tracer routine ptracers_monitor.F which prints out tracer statistics as often as the model dynamic statistic diagnostics (dynsys) are written (or as prescribed by the runtime flag PTRACERS_monitorFreq, set in data.ptracers). There is also a placeholder for any tracer experiment specific diagnostics to be calculated and printed to files. This is done in gchem_diags.F. For instance the time average CO2 air-sea fluxes, and sea surface pH (among others) are written out by dic_biotic_diags.F which is called from gchem_diags.F.

Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology