[MITgcm-support] Actual depth of mds output vertical levels

[Martin Losch]

Daniel,

ever since someone replied to a question of mine with the following "acronym" I wanted to use it myself in an email list: RTFM (-:
Or more politely: I suggest that you have a look at the manual, in particular 
<http://mitgcm.org/public/r2_manual/latest/online_documents/node43.html>
Not only will that answer your question, but you'll also get a better idea of how your model system works. Further information about the grid can be found the in the header of GRID.h

Martin

PS. RC is the depth of the cell center points, where temperature is defined (so -500, -1500, etc in your case). In Finite Volumes the variables have so-called control volumes. In the case of tepmeratures these are delineated the vertical RF-points (the cell boundaries or layer inteface depths), and you can assume that temperature is (piece wise) constant on this volume.

On May 25, 2013, at 1:49 AM, Daniel Peixoto <peixotohn at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Fellow researchers,
> 
> My vertical levels defined in input/data are delZ=4*1000. It means I have 4 layers, and each one is 1000 m thick.  
> The mds output files are 60 x 60 x 4 arrays. If I evaluate on Matlab:
> >> Temp=rdmds('T.0000000432');
> >> Temp01=Temp(:,:,1);
> >> Temp02=Temp(:,:,2);
> and so forth, what is the actual depth of each TempXX variable? 
> 
> I'm in doubt by looking at RC.data and RF.data. I'm assuming
> Temp01=0
> Temp02=-1000
> Temp03=-2000
> Temp04=-3000,
> but please correct me if I am wrong.
> 
> Furthermore, is TempXX the temperature at a given depth (the face or the center of each cell), or is it the mean for the 1000 m thick layer?
> 
> Thanks!
> Daniel Carvalho
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