[MITgcm-support] Particle tracking with MITgcm (flt package)

[Andrea Cimatoribus]

I have been scanning the mailing list, the code and the literature in 
search for info on doing particle tracking with MITgcm.
I could summarize the two main findings as follows (based just on 
reading, not on actual usage):
- There is a recent and apparently very complete Matlab toolbox doing 
off-line 2 and 3 dimensional particle tracking, it works with MITgcm, 
you can read more here: 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lom3.10114/abstract
  It also seems to be able to work fine with curvilinear grids, since 
they present results from a global simulation. It also seems to have all 
the advantages (efficiency) and disadvantages (need lots of data) of an 
off-line tool.

- There is the flt package doing on-line particle tracking, which could 
nicely complement the off-line tool (together with the more standard 
ptracers too). However, flt is not really documented but there is an 
example (flt_example), and people seem to have used the package 
successfully in the past. If I am not mistaken, also the flt package can 
deal with curvilinear grids, but not with 3 dimensional advection.

THE QUESTIONS to the MITgcm masters:
- does anyone know if flt can actually deal with curvilinear grids and 
3D advection (if I understand right, the answer to the latter is yes)?
- Is there any other verification available? I cannot find any data.flt 
other than the one under flt_example.
- What about advection schemes? README.flt states that second-order 
Runge-Kutta is the only option, but I was wandering if that is still the 
case and whether that is important (I am only starting to scratch the 
surface of Lagrangian methods).
- Can flt actually interface to the diagnostic and mnc packages? A grep 
in its directory returns nothing, but my understanding of the workings 
of the code is certainly limited at best.

Thank you very much,
Andrea

-- 
Andrea Cimatoribus
postdoctoral researcher
EPFL ENAC IIE ECOL
https://people.epfl.ch/andrea.cimatoribus