First Steps with PDAF

When you have downloaded PDAF, a good starting point is to run a tutorial example. The directory tutorial/ contains files for tutorials demonstrating the implementation and application of PDAF with a simple 2-dimensional example.

First Test Case - A Single Analysis Step

In this test case, a data assimilation program is used to read an ensemble of model fields from files and compute an analysis step. This is the so-called offline coupling mode of PDAF. A full description of this test case is provided in the implementation tutorial for the offline mode of PDAF.

Compiling

We recommend to first look at the tutorial offline_2D_serial, which is a single analysis step acting on an ensemble of 2D model fields without any parallelization.

Change to the tutorial directory with

cd tutorial/offline_2D_serial

and run

make PDAF_ARCH=linux_gfortran

This compiles the assimilation program including PDAF. The compilation should work for computers running Linux. If the compilation fails, please see below the section Compilation Problems.

Running

Having compiled the program, you can just run it by executing

./PDAF_offline

The program reads ensemble files and a file holding the observations from the directory tutorial/inputs_offline/. Then it computes a single analysis step of the ensemble Kalman filter ESTKF. Running the program should not take more than a second. The program generates the output files state_ana.txt (The analysis state) and ens_01_ana.txt to ens_09_ana.txt (the analysis ensemble).

The screen output shows the progress of the program. For example the ensemble standard deviation before and after the analysis step and final timing and memory information are shown. Lines starting with 'PDAF' are outputs from the code part of PDAF other lines are from the user routines.

Plotting

To plot, e.g. the analysis field you can use Matlab or Octave and do

load state_ana.txt
pcolor(state_ana)

You can also plot the initial ensemble mean field by

cd ../inputs_offline
load state_ini.txt
pcolor(state_ini)

Analogously you can plot the observations (obs.txt) and the true state (true.txt) from which the observations have been generated. In the observation file, only 28 grid points are observed, while non-observed grid points have the value -999.0. To get a meaningful plot, you can specify the limits for the color map by

set(gca,'clim',[-2 2])

Alternatively, you can plot using Python with e.g.

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

file = 'state_ana.txt'

field = np.loadtxt(file)

plt.pcolor(field)
plt.show()

Assimilation Options

There are various options you can set to modify the assimilation, For example you can run

./PDAF_offline -filtertype 7

With this setting, the localized filter LESTKF instead of the global ESTKF. Without further settings, the localization radius is set to 0 so that only the observed grid points are changed by the assimilation. You can further set the localization radius with

./PDAF_offline -filtertype 7 -local_range 5

Now the LESTKF is used with a localization radius of 5 grid points. This localization still uses a constant weight of the observation. So you will see steps in the analysis fields around each observation. To add a tapering so that observations get less influence for increasing distance, use

./PDAF_offline -filtertype 7 -local_range 5 -locweight 2

Now, the filter is applied with the 5th-order polynomial function by Gaspari and Cohn. As a result you get a smoothly changing analysis field. You can also change the ensemble size, e.g. running

./PDAF_offline -dim_ens 5

to run with an ensemble of 5 model states. (For this test case we only prepared 9, so only dim_obs<=9 is possible to run here.) The standard deviation (RMS error) of the observation is set to 0.5 in the program. To change it to, e.g. 2.0, would would run

./PDAF_offline -rms_obs 2.0

Also the inflation can be specified on the command line. PDAF uses the so-called forgetting factor, which is a positive value <=1 (the ensemble variance is influted by the inverse of the forgetting factor). One can specify the forgetting factor as

./PDAF_offline -forget 0.9

All the different options can be combined. For a complete list of possible options, see the file init_pdaf_offline.F90, which is the source code file in which the default values of options are specified.

Second Test Case - A Sequence of Analysis Steps

As a second test case, we recommend to look at the tutorial online_2D_serialmodel. This case is again a simple 2D model field, but now coupled to PDAF with time stepping. This is the so-called online-coupling of PDAF, in which the model code is augmented with data assimilation functionality provided by PDAF. A full description of this test case is provided in the implementation tutorial for the online mode of PDAF.

Compiling

Change to the tutorial directory with

cd ../online_2D_serialmodel

and run

make cleanall

and then

make model_pdaf PDAF_ARCH=linux_gfortran_openmpi

This compiles the assimilation program including PDAF. The compilation should work for computers running Linux, but it requires that OpenMPI is installed on the computer. If it's not installed, please install it using the Linux package providing it. If the compilation still fails, please see below the section Compilation Problems.

Running

Having compiled the program, you can just run it by executing

mpirun -np 9 ./model_pdaf -dim_ens 9

The program computes a sequence of 9 analysis steps with two model time steps in between subsequent analysis steps. The initial ensemble are read from the directory tutorial/inputs_online/, where also the observation files are stored. The assimilation uses of the ensemble Kalman filter ESTKF. It should not take more than a few seconds. The program generates the output files state_stepX_ana.txt (The analysis state at time step X) and ens_01_stepX_ana.txt to ens_09_stepX_ana.txt (the analysis ensemble at time step X) ens_01_stepX_for.txt to ens_09_stepX_for.txt` (the forecast ensemble at time step X)

Plotting

You can plot the analysis fields, but also the observations, true fields and the initial state estimate as described in the first test case. However, the files for the observations and true fields are stored in the directory inputs_online/

To plot the analysis field at time step 10, you can do

load state_step10_ana.txt
pcolor(state_step10_ana)

You can also plot the initial model field by

cd ../inputs_online
load state_ini.txt
pcolor(state_ini)

The directory inputs_online/ also contains files for the true state at time steps 1 to 18. For example, you can plot the true state at time step 15, with

load true_step15.txt
pcolor(true_step15)

Analogously you can plot the observations (obs_stepX.txt) with time step X. In the observation file, observation gaps are indiced by the value -999.0. So to get a meaningful plot, you can specify the limits for the color map by

set(gca,'clim',[-2 2])

Assimilation Options

The same options as for the first test case can be used here, too. In addition, one can specify the forecast length (number of time steps between two analysis steps by

mpirun -np 9 ./model_pdaf -dim_ens 9 -delt_obs 6

To change the ensemble size to 6 states, you can use for example

mpirun -np 6 ./model_pdaf -dim_ens 6 -filtertype 5 -local_range 3

which chooses to run the LETKF with a localization radius of 3 grid points. (Please note: The value behind -np must always set to be equal to the value given for -dim_ens. For this test case we only prepared 9 initial ensemble files, so only dim_obs<=9 is possible to run here.)

Compilation Problems

For the compilation, you need make. This should be installed on any computer running Linux, Unix or OSX. If it is missing, you cannot compile and should install make.

The compilation might fail with an error mentioning blas or lapack. These are libraries for matrix computations, which are used by PDAF for performance reasons. Both libraries are usually installed on Linux computers. If these libraries are missing, please install them from the Linux packages of your Linux distribution. Then compile the tutorial example again.

For compilation on computers different from standard Linux or with a different compiler than gfortran, the directory make.arch/ provides include files for the compilation. To check for a suitable include file koos into the directory make.arch/. There are files for compilation on different computers both with and without parallelization (MPI). If you don't find a suitable include file, you might also copy an existing one and edit it for your needs. To specify the include file for the compilation, you just need to set it when running make as

make PDAF_ARCH=FILENAME_WITHOUT_.h

On MacOS there is usually no gfortran installed. You can install it using the ports of Linux software from Fink or MacPorts?. Likewise, you can install OpenMPI. Then setting PDAF_ARCH=osx_gfortran or PDAF_ARCH=osx_gfortran_openmpi should work to compile the test cases.

Next steps

Possible next steps from here can be the following:

Implementing PDAF with your model

If you plan to couple PDAF with your model, we recommend to study the PDAF implementation tutorials. The tutorial provides a step-by-step explanation of the implementation steps. Further, please see the description of the Implementation Concept of PDAF. Further, PDAF provides tools to generate an ensemble.

Model Bindings

With PDAF 1.13, the PDAF package provides a model binding for the MITgcm general circulation model. This code provides an implementation of PDAF with the MITgcm model for a simple test case. Please look into the directory modelbindings/MITgcm/ of the PDAF package, where a README-file describes the use of the model binding code.

Full overview of PDAF code Package

To get an overview of what is overall contain in the PDAF package, please see the full description of the PDAF code package.