[MITgcm-support] old pickups, new model version -- fails on first timestep with STOP in CALC_R_STAR

[Rose, Brian]

Hi MITgcmers,
I'm trying to revive some calculations from several years ago. The model setup is coupled ocean + AIM atmosphere + thsice on C24 grid, as used in a number of papers by Ferreira, Rose, Marshall, etc.
I have all pickup and configuration files from these old runs, but unfortunately no longer have access to the machine I used to run them on.

So, I have ported an up-to-date version of MITgcm to our new cluster here at U. Albany. I successfully built and ran the test case
MITgcm/verification/cpl_aim+ocn
But when I try to set up the C24 coupled model as close to my previous runs as possible and initialize with my previous pickup files, the ocean model crashes on the first time step with errors like this:

 fail at i,j=   1  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta = -3.398999  3.000000E+03 -1.319700E+04
 fail at i,j=   1  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta = -1.730615  3.000000E+03 -6.998053E+00 -1.319700E+04
 fail at i,j=   3  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -8.601127+273
 fail at i,j=   3  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -7.290877E+00 -8.601127+273
 fail at i,j=   5  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -4.028258E+08
 fail at i,j=   5  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -8.277906E+00 -4.028258E+08
 fail at i,j=   6  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -3.952771+291
 fail at i,j=   6  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -9.155281E+00 -3.952771+291
 fail at i,j=   8  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -5.011502E+48
 fail at i,j=   8  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -1.126187E+01 -5.011502E+48
 fail at i,j=  11  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -8.416418+231
 fail at i,j=  11  25 ; rStarFacS,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -1.384315E+01 -8.416418+231
 fail at i,j=  13  25 ; rStarFacC,H,eta =**********  3.000000E+03 -2.545287E+63
WARNING: r*FacC < hFacInf at       7 pts : bi,bj,Thid,Iter=   1   1   1        -1
WARNING: r*FacS < hFacInf at       6 pts : bi,bj,Thid,Iter=   1   1   1        -1
STOP in CALC_R_STAR : too SMALL rStarFac[C,W,S] !

I'm not sure where to begin in debugging this.
I found a few references to similar-sounding problems in the support archives, but no clear answers. Someone suggested that this problem could arise from heavy sea ice loading. That is certainly the case here. The pickup files are from a very cold simulation with some tens of meters of sea ice. However this never caused problems before.

Any hints or suggestions?
Thanks,
Brian

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  Brian E. J. Rose
     Assistant Professor
     Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences
     University at Albany

     Earth Sciences 315
     (518) 442-4477
     http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/brose/
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