GCHP run provides unreasonable CO2 values

[kaysuselj]

Your name

kay suselj

Your affiliation

JPL

What happened? What did you expect to happen?

(Exp1): Ran out-of-the-box GCHP using single species CO2 on NASA pleiades for 1 month (as in #431)

• Starting date 20190101
• used restart files provided to Longtao by lizziel: Carbon simulation - new restart files needed for GCHP #431

CO2 concentrations within the upper atmosphere exceed reasonable values. Try to understand what's wrong.

(Exp2): Redo the (Exp 1), but turn off dynamics+convection+chemistry in geoschem_config.yml. Under operations: set:

chemistry:
   activate: false
 convection:
   activate: false
 pbl_mixing:
    activate: false
    use_non_local_pbl: false

• What I expected: My understanding is that in Exp2, we prescribe surface fluxes of CO2; dynamics and chemistry is off. I expect CO2 concentrations in the first model level to be changing/increasing with time, in the rest of the atmosphere they would stay constant.
• What I see: The CO2 concentrations SpeciesConcVV_CO2 at the highest model level (level=1; lev:positive = "down" ) are increasing with time, in the rest of the atmosphere, they are fairly constant.

I am not sure, whether:

1. I misunderstand what is up and what is down (is level 1, with lev:positive = "down" not the top of the atmosphere?).
2. There is a bug in assigning the levels for the SpeciesConcVV_CO2
3. Could there be some problem with my setting, is there a bug in GCHP in how levels are understood? It was a little surprising to see that CO2 concentration in (Exp1) are getting out of control in the uppermost model level.

Any idea on how to deal with this would be appreciated.

What are the steps to reproduce the bug?

• run GCHP with single CO2 species for one month.
• took restart file from Carbon simulation - new restart files needed for GCHP #431

Please attach any relevant configuration and log files.

No response

What GCHP version were you using?

GCHP 14.4.0

What environment were you running GCHP on?

Other (please explain below)

What compiler and version were you using?

NASA pleiades, ifort 19.1.3.304 20200925

What MPI library and version were you using?

MPT: libxmpi.so 'HPE MPT 2.28 04/24/23 12:22:36-mraymond'

Will you be addressing this bug yourself?

Yes, but I will need some help

Additional information

No response

[yantosca]

Thanks for writing @kaysuselj. I think the GCHP diagnostic collections (except Emissions) are flipped so that level=1 is the surface and level=72 is the top of atmosphere. @lizziel can confirm.

[lizziel]

Hi @kaysuselj, this issue is discussed in #21. MAPL currently always writes positive is down in exports, which is incorrect and needs to be addressed. The convention for GCHP diagnostics is all have level 1 as the surface with the exception of the emissions collection which is the opposite (there is another open issue about this on GitHub).

I am currently comparing GCHP and GC-Classic carbon results to sanity check the results. I am seeing discrepancies that need to be investigated. I suggest waiting before using the GCHP carbon simulation.

[kaysuselj]

Thanks for the quick response, @yantosca and @lizziel .

[yantosca]

Thanks @kaysuselj. I will close out this issue for now. We will hopefully be able to resolve the issues in the GCHP carbon simulation quickly.

[lizziel]

I am reopening this issue so that users can see it is not yet resolved.

[msulprizio]

Please see the full, continuing discussion in #440