[MITgcm-support] OBCS/EXF in Checkpoint68d

[Roberta Sciascia]

Hi everyone, 

I’ve recently dowloaded the MITgcm checkpoint68d and stumbled upon an error in the OBCS/EXF handling that I suppose might be related to the commit 
“Add interannual monthly forcing to exf “. 
I’ve run this same configuration successfully on an older version of the MITgcm (checkpoint67b) but wanted to use the option OBCSbalanceSurf so I’ve upgraded to a newer version. 

I run a configuration with OBCS read from files and time levels controlled from the EXF_NML_OBCS. 
In my specific case, I have only one open boundary, the southern one and here is how my EXF_NML_OBCS looks like 

 &EXF_NML_OBCS

#

 obcsSstartdate1   = 20160101,

 obcsSstartdate2   = 000000,

 obcsSperiod       = 21600.,

#

The configuation was compiling correctly but failing to run with the following error

(PID.TID 0000.0001) *** ERROR *** CAL_CHECKDATE: Invalid month in date(1)=         0


(PID.TID 0000.0001) *** ERROR *** CAL_FULLDATE: fatal error from cal_CheckDate

This error is caused by the field OBCSN that in my case is not defined and doesn’t have a Startdate set. However, I suppose that with the modification to the file exf_getffield_start.F <https://github.com/MITgcm/MITgcm/compare/checkpoint68d...master#diff-5c86463f942c7c23fd7c4b443144629c9036aa58922d7e67cc6ccb3db613665f> and specifically the condition in the new lines 80-81  


IF ( useCAL .AND. .NOT.(fld_period.EQ.-12. .OR. & (fld_period.EQ.-1 .AND. useYearlyFields)) ) THEN

is true even for non-active OBC hence the model is unable to run because in the case of a non-active boundary the date is equal to zero. 

Reverting to the old configuration IF ( useCAL .AND. fld_period.GT.0. ) THEN solved the problem for me but I don’t think my OBCS configuration is a corner case and thought this might be useful to everyone. 

Hope this is somehow clear

Cheers, 
Roberta 
-- 
Roberta Sciascia

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
ISMAR - Istituto di Scienze Marine
Sede Secondaria di Lerici 
Forte Santa Teresa – 19032 Lerici (SP), Italy
tel: +39 0187 1788903





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