Unified Forecast System (FV3GFS)

UFS & FV3GFS logos

In this section of the lab we’ll setup the Unified Forecast System (UFS) atmospheric model FV3GFS. The UFS is a community-based, coupled, comprehensive Earth modeling system. The UFS numerical applications span local to global domains and predictive time scales from sub-hourly analyses to seasonal predictions. It is designed to support the Weather Enterprise and to be the source system for NOAA‘s operational numerical weather prediction applications.

The component models currently used in the UFS are the Global Forecast System 15 (GFSv15) atmosphere, the Modular Ocean Model 6 (MOM6), the WAVEWATCH III wave model, the Los Alamos sea ice model 5 (CICE5), the Noah and Noah-MP land models, the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) aerosol model, the Ionosphere-Plasmasphere Electrodynamics (IPE) model, and the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) model for storm surge, tides, and coastal circulation.

It’s easy to install with the package manager Spack. Please complete the steps in Preparation and Part 1: Create an HPC Cluster before proceeding with UFS. To do so we’ve broken it down into the following steps:

  1. Install UFS with Spack
  2. Download the simple test case
  3. Run the test case
  4. Visualize results