[MITgcm-devel] flag names

[Jean-Michel Campin]

Hi,

Ed wants to set the correct units in the mnc files:
and he has to know what is the vertical coordinate 
(pressure or height) and what salt is (salinity or 
specific humidity).
One can always test what is the buoyancyRelation, 
but it would be nice to have internal flags that tell clearly
what kind of set-up is running, and to set the units accordingly.

The idea also is that those flags could be used in other 
places in the code (instead of testing the 7 first characters
of buoyancyRelation to decide if this is an "ocean" type 
simulation).

For the vertical coordinate, I've seen 2 flags that already exist
in PARAMS.h but are not used (also not set correctly):
usingZCoords 
usingPCoords
I proposed to set those 2 flags according to buoyancyRelation.

We still need a flag (or 2) to distinguish between the ocean and 
the atmosphere. I propose those 2 :
 fluidIsAir
 fluidIsWater
(again, they will be sitting in PARAMS.h and set according 
 to buoyancyRelation)
I don't know of what people think of those 2 names (I like the 
fact that they are short, and don't make any assumption 
about the physic (atmos/ocean) so that they can be used for
GFD problems and tank experiment).

Comments and suggestions ?

Jean-Michel