Preliminaries and Prerequisites

Several topics must be considered before attempting to build and run AOSPRE.

AOSPRE has been developed and tested primarily in Linux environments. Other environments (e.g., MacOS, Docker/Singularity/Apptainer containers) may work for the knowledgeable and motivated user, but are not currently supported.

Substantial desktop or laptop systems may have the resources for running relatively small, low-resolution experiments through AOSPRE. More detailed, realistic AOSPRE experiments will likely require powerful servers or supercomputer allocations.

Fortran

The core code for AOSPRE is Fortran, and has been tested with Fortran compilers from GCC, Intel, and NVidia.

The GCC gfortran compiler is commonly available through a Linux distribution's package manager (e.g., by installing package "gcc-gfortran"); Intel and NVidia both have Fortran compilers freely available for academic or personal use. Other modern Fortran compilers may work as well, but have not been tested.

NetCDF C and Fortran libraries:

AOSPRE relies on the NetCDF C and Fortran libraries, software developed by UCAR/Unidata (http://doi.org/10.5065/D6H70CW6).

Many Linux distributions include NetCDF libraries as an optional package (e.g., from EPEL libraries of Centos and Alma Linux distributions). Users may also build NetCDF from source with code available from the above URL. The NetCDF Fortran library should be compiled with the same compiler as will be used to build AOSPRE. NetCDF libraries installed from a Linux software repository are most likely compiled with the GCC gfortran compiler.

CR-SIM

AOSPRE uses lookup tables distributed with the Cloud Resolving Model Radar Simulator (CR-SIM). See documentation page "Acquire the CR-SIM tables" for details on how to acquire these files.

WRF or CM1 output files

AOSPRE requires model output files from WRF or CM1. Best results come from high resolution (smaller than 1-km grid spacing) and high output frequency (smaller than 1 minute). This implies a large data volume (on the order of gigabytes or even terabytes) which cannot be included in this AOSPRE distribution. Very small sample model output files, enough for a radar sweep or two, are included in the test directory.

Morrison microphysics used in NWP model simulations

AOSPRE currently works only with model output files from WRF or CM1 simulations that have used the Morrison microphysics scheme, specifically mp_physics option 10 in the WRF namelist. Other schemes will likely be supported with later releases of AOSPRE.

Optional software packages:

Additionally, users may find some optional packages useful:

MPICH or OpenMPI (optional)

MPICH (www.mpich.org) and OpenMPI (ww.open-mpi.org) are implementations of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard. AOSPRE uses MPI in its (optional) multi-processor configuration. These software libraries are commonly available through your Linux distribution's package manager, or may be acquired through their respective web sites.

ncview (optional)

ncview is commonly used as a quick-look tool for NetCDF format files (which AOSPRE produces). It is available at https://cirrus.ucsd.edu/ncview or may be available through your Linux distribution's package manager.

LROSE (optional)

LROSE is a collection of software for working with Lidar, Radar, and Profiler datasets. AOSPRE creates files which are compatible with several utilities from the LROSE toolkit. LROSE may be found at http://lrose.net.