7.1.1 Introduction

This section of the documentation describes the Diagnostics package available within the GCM. A large selection of model diagnostics is available for output. In addition to the diagnostic quantities pre-defined in the GCM, there exists the option, in any experiment, to define a new diagnostic quantity and include it as part of the diagnostic output with the addition of a single subroutine call in the routine where the field is computed. As a matter of philosophy, no diagnostic is enabled as default, thus each user must specify the exact diagnostic information required for an experiment. This is accomplished by enabling the specific diagnostic of interest cataloged in the Diagnostic Menu (see Section 7.1.4). Instructions for enabling diagnostic output and defining new diagnostic quantities are found in Section 7.1.4 of this document.

The Diagnostic Menu in this section of the manual is a listing of diagnostic quantities available within the main (dynamics) part of the GCM. Additional diagnostic quantities, defined within the different GCM packages, are available and are listed in the diagnostic menu subsection of the manual section associated with each relevant package. Once a diagnostic is enabled, the GCM will continually increment an array specifically allocated for that diagnostic whenever the appropriate quantity is computed. A counter is defined which records how many times each diagnostic quantity has been incremented. Several special diagnostics are included in the menu. Quantities refered to as ``Counter Diagnostics'', are defined for selected diagnostics which record the frequency at which a diagnostic is incremented separately for each model grid location. Quantitied refered to as ``User Diagnostics'' are included in the menu to facilitate defining new diagnostics for a particular experiment.

Copyright © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Last update 2011-01-09