19991216: model elevation question

Matt,

the error message implies that the terrain.gsf data file
is not being found. Since you know that the file does exist,
you might need to verify that:
1) Your file permissions allow you to access the file from the 
   path.
2) The line in your script where you define 
   TOPOFL    = /data1/nawips-5.4/terrain/terrain.gsf

   check for any typos in the path or hidden cntrl characters
   (sometimes text editors can stick in a ^H or something if you backspace
   and fudge a character).

3) try running the program interactively instead of from your redirection
   to eliminate the above possibility.

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support



>From: "Matthew G. Fearon" <address@hidden>
>Organization: Desert Research Institute
>Keywords: 199912172026.NAA22512

>Steve,
>
>Thank you for this information. It will be very helpful to me.
>I followed all the procedures after retrieving the terrain.tar.Z
>file. I made a direct access binary file from the ascii as well. I
>received the normal completion message after running
>tercnvrt. When I run gdtopo however, I receive the following
>error
>
>$GEMEXE/gdtopo << EOF
> GDFILE    Grid file                         $GEMDATA/HRCBOB.GRD
> GAREA     Grid area                         WV
> GDATTIM   Grid date/time                    LAST
> TOPOFL    Topography file name
> Parameters requested: GDFILE,GAREA,GDATTIM,TOPOFL.
> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> [G
> DT
>OPO -12]  Topography file does not exist.
> Parameters requested: GDFILE,GAREA,GDATTIM,TOPOFL.
> GEMPAK-GDTOPO> GEMPAK-GDTOPO>
>
>rm *.nts
>
>Here is my gdtopo program:
>
>$GEMEXE/gdtopo <<EOF
>GDFILE    = us.west
>GAREA     = 25;-125;45;-105
>GDATTIM = 990101/1200
>TOPOFL    = /data1/nawips-5.4/terrain/terrain.gsf
>r
>
>exit
>
>EOF
>
>#$GEMEXE/gpend
>rm *.nts
>
>The terrain.gsf file does exist. Do you know what may be
>the problem ? Please reply at your convienence. Thank you
>again for all your help.
>
>Matt Fearon
>address@hidden
>
>
>
>
>Unidata Support wrote:
>
>> Matt,
>>
>> All models use some smoothed form of surface data since using
>> terrain data at a higher resolution than the grid and/or large
>> discontinuities inadjacent grid point values will cause the model
>> to blow up with anomalous gravity waves and non-hydrostatic
>> forcing.
>>
>> The ETA model employs a step terrain. There are some points about
>> the difference in actiual station elevation and the model elevation in
>> the 32km ETA whitepaper at:
>> http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/447body.htm
>>
>> You can also look at the FSL RUC 40km topography at:
>> http://maps.fsl.noaa.gov/40kmtopocol.gif
>> They also have ascii 40km and 60km topography datasets for download at:
>> http://maps.fsl.noaa.gov/MAPS.domain.cgi
>>
>> We do have a 5 minute (approx 10km) gridded topography dataset for
>> Gempak which you can use as a gridded data set (eg gdlist, gdpoint etc).
>>
>> To use the gempak terrain dataset, download from the gbuddy ftp account
>> nawips-5.4/contrib/terrain.tar.Z
>>
>> and unpack on your system with:
>>
>> zcat terrain.tar.Z | tar xvf -
>>
>> This will create a directory called terrain which containe
>> the ascii terrain data set (63 Mb) and a program directory called
>> gdtopo which can be used to convert the data into a gempak
>> grid file.
>>
>> First you need to convert the ascii terrain file into a direct access
>> file (like a gempak map datafile). To do this, you need to build the
>> tercnvrt program from the fortran code with:
>>
>> f77 -o tercnvrt tercnvrt.f
>>
>> Then run tercnvrt to create the direct access file, eg:
>>
>> prompt% tercnvrt
>>
>> Please enter name of original terrain dataset: terrain.ascii
>>                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>  Now enter name of file which will
>>  contain sector of terrain data: terrain.gsf
>>                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> Now build and install gdtopo by cd'ing into the gdtopo directory
>> and building with:
>>
>> make all
>> make install
>> make clean
>>
>> (This will install the gdtopo program into the $GEMEXE directory and
>> install the ancillary pdf files as well).
>>
>> Now you can create a grid file for some area. Since the maximum number of
>> grid points by default in a gempak grid file is ~97,000 points, this
>> is approximately 311x311 grid points (for the 5 minute data set this is
>> roughly 25 degrees x 25 degrees). In otherwords, even though the database
>> covers the entire globe, you can only view a 25 degree square at a time
>> as a gempak grid file. As an example, I created a file called us.west
>> in the terrain subdirectory that is a 20x20 degree file (garea =
>> 25;-125;45;-105) as an example which you can use.
>>
>> To create your own grid file area, run gdtopo:
>>
>>  GDFILE   = us.west
>>  GAREA    = 25;-125;45;-105
>>  GDATTIM  = 990101/1200
>>  TOPOFL   = terrain.gsf
>>  GEMPAK-GDTOPO>r
>>
>> The gdattim is only used to create a grid time in the output file but
>> really doesn't do anything else.
>>
>> An example of running gdcntr with the us.west grid file that is produced:
>>  GDATTIM  = 990101/1200
>>  GLEVEL   = 0
>>  GVCORD   = pres
>>  GFUNC    = topo
>>  GDFILE   = us.west
>>  CINT     = 200
>>  LINE     = 5/1/1/0
>>  MAP      = 6
>>  TITLE    = 1
>>  DEVICE   = ps
>>  SATFIL   =
>>  RADFIL   =
>>  PROJ     = ced
>>  GAREA    = grid
>>  CLEAR    = y
>>  PANEL    = 0
>>  TEXT     = .5
>>  SCALE    = 0
>>  LATLON   = 7/10/1//1;1
>>  HILO     =
>>  HLSYM    =
>>  CLRBAR   =
>>  CONTUR   = 0
>>  SKIP     = 0
>>  FINT     = 200
>>  FLINE    = 30-7
>>  CTYPE    = c
>>  LUTFIL   =
>>  STNPLT   =
>>  GEMPAK-GDCNTR>r
>> Creating process: ps for queue 251454
>>
>>  Grid file: us.west
>>  GRID IDENTIFIER:
>>     TIME1             TIME2         LEVL1 LEVL2   VCORD PARM
>> 990101/1200                             0          PRES TOPO
>>
>>  GAREA:     grid
>>
>>  MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM VALUES -4765.00  3790.00
>>
>>  LINE CONTOURS:
>>
>>  LEVELS:     -4600.00 -4400.00 -4200.00 -4000.00 -3800.00 -3600.00 -3400.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>>
>>  LEVELS:     -3200.00 -3000.00 -2800.00 -2600.00 -2400.00 -2200.00 -2000.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>>
>>  LEVELS:     -1800.00 -1600.00 -1400.00 -1200.00 -1000.00  -800.00  -600.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>>
>>  LEVELS:      -400.00  -200.00     0.00   200.00   400.00   600.00   800.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>>
>>  LEVELS:      1000.00  1200.00  1400.00  1600.00  1800.00  2000.00  2200.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>>
>>  LEVELS:      2400.00  2600.00  2800.00  3000.00  3200.00  3400.00  3600.00
>>  COLORS:            5        5        5        5        5        5        5
>>  LINTYP:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LINWID:            1        1        1        1        1        1        1
>>  LABEL:             0        0        0        0        0        0        0
>> Enter <cr> to accept parameters or type EXIT:
>>
>> I hope this helps you with your work.
>>
>> Steve Chiswell
>> Unidata User Support
>>
>> >From: "Matthew G. Fearon" <address@hidden>
>> >Organization: Desert Research Institute
>> >Keywords: 199912170024.RAA17299
>>
>> >Steve,
>> >
>> >I attached my question below. I just figure I would mention briefly
>> >what I am trying to accomplish first.
>> >
>> >I have created a text file of 40km eta model hght@0%none field or
>> >what is consider the ground surface in the eta model. I have done
>> >this for each grid point for the entire eta grid and each hght has a
>> >corresponding latitude and longitude. I then compared the true
>> >ground surface of certain sounding stations to the heights
>> >from the eta model by locating the closet lat/lon relationship. From
>> >this comparison, I am noticing that the eta heights are always quite
>> >higher than the true ground surface of the sounding sites, except for
>> >FSX which is lower. I attached a list below, the heights are in meters:
>> >
>> >stn       sounding      eta
>> >RNO    1341.5      1776.8
>> >UIL      54.880      229.29
>> >OAK    3.0500      109.45
>> >FSX     2134.1      1740.0
>> >EKO    1551.8       1872.2
>> >BOI      871.95      1371.6
>> >DEN    1612.8       2238.7
>> >TUS     786.59      1084.6
>> >GGW   695.12      832.76
>> >
>> >Do you know if there is a prewritten grid file containing the true
>> >ground
>> >surface elevation (hgt above mean sea level) that I could match to the
>> >lat/lons that are available from the 40km eta ?
>> >
>> >Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>> >Thank you in advance,
>> >
>> >Matt Fearon
>> >address@hidden
>> >
>> >
>>
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>