Course Description - Use of Computing Facilities, Spring 2010

2010

Computer Training Use of Products Num Weather Prediction Annual Seminar Meetings

Related

NWP Course Notes NWP Course Presentations Comp. Course Notes Getting here

• GRIB API: library and tools
• Introduction for new users/MARS
• MAGICS
• METVIEW
• Use of supercomputing resources
• Introduction to SMS/XCDP

See also:

• General information
• Practical details
• Registration

COM-GRIB: GRIB API: library and tools (23 - 26 February 2010)

This 3½-day module will start at 9:00h on Tuesday, 23 February 2010, and finish at 13:00h on Friday, 26 February 2010.

GRIB API is the new GRIB decoding/encoding software developed at ECMWF. It supports GRIB edition 1 and 2 with the same function calls and has both a Fortran interface and C interface.

A useful set of command line tools is also included which provide an easy way to access and modify information contained in a GRIB message. As the GRIB API design is based on a key/value approach, the aim of this module is to provide information about the keys available and the way to use them with the GRIB API library and tools.

This module assumes the student has knowledge of UNIX and Fortran. This course is aimed at users interested in a more advanced usage of the GRIB API functionalities to decode/encode GRIB data.

Topics:

• GRIB edition 1 vs. edition 2
• GRIB API and the keys approach
• Manipulating GRIB headers with GRIB tools
• Manipulating GRIB messages using the GRIB API library through the Fortran interface.

COM-INTRO: Introduction for new users/MARS (1 - 5 March 2010)

This 5-day module will start at 9:00h on Monday, 1 March 2010 and finish at 13:00h on Friday, 5 March 2010.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to ECMWF's basic computing services, both the workstation systems and the data storage/archive facility. MARS is the Centre's meteorological data archive. This course is aimed at new users of ECMWF's computer services.

This module assumes the student has knowledge of compilation of simple Fortran programs in a UNIX environment.

Topics:

• System and hardware overview
• Submitting batch jobs
• Access from Member States
• Data storage/retrieval facilities
• Running jobs
• Libraries
• MARS (Meteorological Archival and Retrieval System)
  • overview
  • description of data available
  • practical examples
• Simple usage of GRIB API library and tools
• BUFR decoding routines
• Interpolation of data

COM-MAG: MAGICS (8 - 9 March 2010)

This 2-day module will start at 9:00h on Monday, 8 March 2010, and finish at 17:00h on Tuesday, 9 March 2010.

Magics is a meteorological graphics package, developed at ECMWF, which can handle all meteorological data formats used at ECMWF (such as GRIB, BUFR) and produces meteorological maps and graphs. It offers Fortran, C and Python programming interfaces and includes interpreters for XML based input. It is used heavily within Metview, and is also used within several Member State meteorological services.

The course will teach the basic concepts of Magics and provides the foundations for participants to use this as a basis for their own work. Further, the course introduces the latest features of the Magics++ library, with an emphasis on the powerful MagML description language to produce meteorological plots.

This module assumes the student has knowledge of compilation of simple Fortran or C programs in a UNIX environment.

Topics:

• Visualisation of meteorological data with Magics
• How can Magics help you to generate plots for the web

COM-MV: Metview (10 - 12 March 2010)

This 3-day module will start at 9:00h on Wednesday, 10 March 2010, and finish at 17:00h on Friday, 12 March 2010.

Metview is the ECMWF data manipulation and visualisation package for meteorological data. It is used within several Member State meteorological services.

The course covers Metview’s concepts to access, manipulate and visualise meteorological data, with emphasis on its powerful macro language. Students are shown how they can use Metview to plot observation data, visualise and manipulate analysis and forecast fields and how they can develop their post-processing macros.

The course will also give a short introduction to Metview 4, the next generation of the Metview which is currently under development.

Although not a pre-requisite, it would be an advantage for participants to have attended the COM MAG module beforehand.

Topics:

• Metview user interface and applications
• Metview macros

COM-HPCF: Use of supercomputing resources (15 - 19 March 2010)

This 5-day module will start at 9:00h on Monday, 15 March 2010, and finish at 13:00h on Friday, 19 March 2010.

This module assumes the student has already begun to use ECMWF’s computer services. The aim is to introduce students to ECMWF’s supercomputing services, covering those areas of optimisation that will help the student to make more efficient use of the system and avoiding the areas which may adversely impact overall system performance.

Topics:

• Hardware architecture review
• File system overview
• Programming environment
• Performance analysis tools
• Batch system
• Optimisation
• Parallel programming introduction
• OpenMP introduction

COM-SMS: SMS/XCdp (22 - 24 March 2010)

• This 2½-day module will start at 9:00h on Monday, 22 March 2010, and finish at 13:00h on Wednesday, 24 March 2010.
• SMS is an application that enables users to run a large number of programs, which may have dependencies on one another and in time, in a controlled environment with reasonable tolerance of both hardware and software failures, combined with good restart capabilities. Users communicate with SMS using either the command and display program, CDP, or its X-windows equivalent, XCdp.
• This module assumes the student has a good knowledge of UNIX and of running shell scripts.

Topics:

• SMS
• Introduction
• Suite/task design in theory and practice
• How to design an 'operational' suite
• ECMWF’s use of SMS
• XCdp