[netcdfgroup] netCDF Operators NCO version 4.9.8 have boogied-in

• To: NCO Announce Mail List <nco-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [netcdfgroup] netCDF Operators NCO version 4.9.8 have boogied-in
• From: Charlie Zender <zender@xxxxxxx>
• Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2021 11:52:47 -0700

The netCDF Operators NCO version 4.9.8 have arrived.

http://nco.sf.net (Homepage, Mailing lists, Help)
http://github.com/nco (Source Code, Issues, Releases, Developers)

What's new?
Version 4.9.8 contains a few cool features.
These include support for unpacking sparse 1D (S1D) data and restart
files used for plant functional types and multiple elevation classes,
splitting monthly resolution timeseries that do not begin/end in
Jan/Dec, seamless climos for the E3SM ice-sheet model (MALI), and
corner-case bugfixes for inferring grid files and handling
sub-gridscale data.

Work on NCO 4.9.9 has commenced and will continue improving support
for analysis of land surface datasets packed into sparse-1D formats,
splitting daily resolution datasets along monthly boundaries,
and begin ncremap support for the MOAB regridding package.

Enjoy,
Charlie

NEW FEATURES (full details always in ChangeLog):

A. Windows builds should now contain the nces.exe and ncrcat.exe
   executables. Previously, Windows users had to run nces and ncrcat
   commands indirectly, using ncra.exe -Y nces ..., or manually copy
   ncra.exe to nces.exe, etc. The executables are identical, and
   behave differently depending on their invocation name.
   ncrcat             ... # These all do the same thing
   ncrcat.exe         ... # "
   ncra.exe -Y ncrcat ... # "
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#ncrcat
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#nces

B. ncclimo supports new options --mth_srt and --mth_end in splitter
   mode. The arguments to these options specify the (1-based) month in
   which the requested timeseries will begin and end, respectively,
   and these default to 1 (January) and 12 (December). To extract
   14-month timeseries from individual monthly input files one would
   use, e.g.,
   ncclimo --yr_srt=1 --yr_end=2 --mth_srt=4 --mth_end=5 ...
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#ncclimo
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#mth_srt
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#mth_end

C. ncclimo/ncremap support analysis of MALI land ice model output
   when invoked with the new '-P mali' or '--prc_typ=mali' options.
   ncclimo -P mali -s 1 -e 2 -o climo mali.hist*.nc
   ncremap -P mali --map=map.nc in.nc out.nc
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#prc_typ
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#ncclimo

D. ncks now supports unpacking sparse 1D (S1D) ELM/CLM data and
   restart files for plant functional types (PFTs) and multiple
   elevation classes (MECs).
   ncks --s1d -v cols1d_topoglc --hrz=elm_mali_ig_history.nc \
        elm_mali_restart.nc out.nc
   ncks --s1d -v GPP,pfts1d_wtgcell elm_crop_history.nc out.nc
   After such S1D datasets have been "unpacked", they may easily
   be regridded with, e.g., ncremap.
   This feature is under continued development and user-feedback
   would be appreciated. Documentation does not yet exist.
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#ncks

E. ncks now prints more informative messages when users attempt
   to vertically interpolate variables (such as EAM/CAM US, VS) in
   hybrid coordinate data files that contain multiple grids (e.g.,
   the normal and staggered grids) though only one surface pressure
   variable.
   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#ncremap
   Thanks to Walter Hannah for noticing this.

F. As of version 4.9.8 the default ncremap behavior is to omit the
   staggered grid from output files on an cap grid.
   The new flag --stg_grd turns-on outputting the staggered
   grid, and thus recovers the previous default behavior.

BUG FIXES:

A. ncap2's array() function was rewritten to use a starting value
   plus an index times an increment, rather than adding increments, in
   order to reduce rounding errors. Thanks to Henry Butowsky.

B. The regridder in ncremap no longer attempts to access the
   (non-existent) tally array in SGS-weighted fields without missing
   values. The previous behavior would cause a crash. Fortunately
   this combination does not often occur in practice. Upgrading to
   4.9.8 is the only solution, there is no workaround.

C. The capability to infer MPAS grids introduced in 4.9.8 introduced
   a bug that requires that horizontal coordinates have a units
   attribute. Many datafiles strongly disagree with this presumption!
   The requirement has been removed. The solution is to upgrade to
   4.9.8, there is no workaround.

D. The ncclimo --xcl_var flag has been fixed. Previously the
   flag had no effect. Now a variable extraction list may be turned
   into a variable exclusion by using --xcl_var --vars=v1,v2,...vn.
   The workaround is to use the option combination
   --nco_opt='-x' -v v1,v2,...vn. The solution is to upgrade.

E. At some unknown point, the behavior of ncclimo in MPI mode on Cori
   seems to have changed. Slurm on Cori does not (never did? no longer
   does?) allow multiple srun commands to execute concurrently on the
   same node by default. Thanks to Noel Keen to guiding me to the
   options (--gres=craynetwork:0 --mem=20000) required to fix this.
   This Slurm issue does not appear to affect any other DOE machines.
   The workaround is to avoid MPI mode on Cori, the solution is to
   upgrade.

Full release statement at http://nco.sf.net/ANNOUNCE

--
Charlie Zender, Earth System Sci. & Computer Sci.
University of California, Irvine 949-891-2429 )'(