Climate Change Cell at BUET

Capacity Building on Climate Change Modeling for Bangladesh

Frequently Asking Questions

1. How can I install Open SuSe 11.0?
2. Where I can get essential RPMS for PRECIS?
3. How to install PRECIS 1.8.2. in my PC?
4. How to set up ER40 experiments from 2 DVD LBC disks?
5. What are the output processing scripts I can use?
6. What are the processing scripts I can use?
7. How can I display my data?

1. How can I install Open SuSe 11.0?

Answers (David Hein, Met Office, UK):

You need openSuse 11.1 installed on the PCs (http://www.opensuse.org/ )

*Specifically you want the *32 bit* version (this is important).

*Install the full DVD version (not the live CD version).

*We prefer KDE 4.1 over the Gnome desktop. That will be an option during install.

*Create one user

  login: precis
  pw: precis

  Auto-login is OK

*Use a separate Administrator/Root password: hadley2

* Add the following packages to the software installation: gv, emacs,
KDE pdf reader, pico, nano, imagemagick, gnuplot, tcl, tcl-devel, tk,
tk-devel, blas, gcc41

* _Uninstall/Remove_ the ksh package during installation (important!!)

Now install

After installation finishes:

* Activate the "at" daemon atd.

To activate atd:

From the main log in screen, log in as root (pw: hadley2) and open a
terminal window.

type:

yast2

That should open up YaST (Suse setup tool) which has a nice GUI

Click on
System -- System Services (runlevel)

On the list of services displayed, click "atd" and then Enable. Then
click OK, OK, etc and close Yast.

2. Where I can get essential RPMS for PRECIS

Answers (David Hein, Met Office, UK):

You can find the *.rpm files mentioned below at this location:

http://www.precisrcm.com/BANGLADESH/

3. How to install PRECIS 1.8.2. in my PC

Answers (David Hein, Met Office, UK):

* The file system layout (i.e. the partition table) is not important,
> so the default that OpenSuse suggests is fine. The OS will suggest a
> different swap partition size based on the amount of RAM, so it would
> be better to have the 2GB ram upgrade installed prior to installing Suse.
>
> * The *.rpm files can be copied to a USB memory stick and then installed

> with one command. If you insert the
> memory stick, it should auto mount (and open a window with /media/usb
> or /media/[some other name]
>
> Take note of the /media/[whatever] and then from the command line, type:
>
> su - [then type in root password]
> rpm -ivh /media/[whatever/*.rpm

Download IDV from here:
http://www.precisrcm.com/BANGLADESH/idv_2_8_linux-i386_installer.sh

It is 83.2MB - if that is too big, we'll send it via DVD in the post

Copy it to /home/precis on the PRECIS PCs, then

chmod 755 idv_2_8_linux-i386_installer.sh

./idv_2_8_linux-i386_installer.sh

It uses a Java based installation system which looks like Windows - very

easy to install. Put it in /home/precis/IDV or something like that

Finally do a full install of PRECIS from the 1.8.2 PRECIS DVD you should

receive in the post.

http://precis.metoffice.com/Install/5.html

Installing PRECIS 1.8.2 (Dr,. Claire, Met Office, UK)

To remove the older version of PRECIS before installing new version, use the command

rm -fr $UMDIR

rm -fr $ANCIL_MASTER

su -

df -h

If you dont see /media/Precis182 then you will need to mount it manually

mkdir /media/dvd

mount /dev/dvd /media/dvd # /dev/dvd may vary

Then exit back to user

exit

Copy installation files

cp -v /media/dvd/install* . or cp -v /media/Precis182/install* .

Then install PRECIS

./install_precis /media/dvd or ./install_precis /media/Precis182

4. How to set up ER40 experiments from 2 DVD LBC disks

Answers (Saiful Islam, BUET, Bangladesh):

You should have the two data disks which contain LBC data of ER40 reanalysis data from December1979 to 1990 and four region files. Some of the participants already contacted me how to install new data and run the experiments. You can find a readme file in Disk-1 where some instructions and description of LBC data are given.

Please find below necessary steps you need to follow to run this experiment-

There are three folders in the disk-1 : regions, dumps and lbc

Step-1: In regions folder you will find 4 region files of 50km which you can copy to /home/précis/précis_save/region folder

Step-2: Then open précis and in the “region tool” import each of the region. It will automatically create 4 folders in /home/précis/précis_save/region directory.

Step-3: Then copy one dump file in the dump directory to the /home/précis/dump folder

Step-4: Copy the folder of ER40 experiment in the lbc which contains LBC data (from dec 1979 to 1984) into the /home/précis/pp4lbc . Then Copy all LBC the files of disk-2 in the ER40 experiment folder in /home/précis/pp4lbc. It contains LBC files from 1985 to 1990

Step-5: Unzip all the .gz files (they are zipped) of /précis/pp4lbc using “gunzip *” command

Step-6: Select any of the Bangladesh region (1 to 4) to set up the experiment

Step-7: Select the ER40 model using Model button

Step-8: Select start time as December 01, 1979 and duration of simulation should be 11 years (to exclude one year spin up)

Step-9: Run the experiments

Step-10: If there is power failure, kill the experiment and then restart from completed time.

5. What are the regions I should run my experiments?

Answers (Dr. Baski and Dr. Claire, Met office, UK ):

The following six regions/domains can be used for simulation of PRECIS over Bangladesh -

6. What are the processing scripts I can use?

Answers (Saiful Islam, BUET, Bangladesh):

The following two exercised provided by Met Office can be useful to process data.

a. worksheet2_PP_utilities_UI.html

b. worksheet3_data_analysis_D.html

The following 3 shell scripts I have written to process data which I have used to process data of A1B (1961-1990). Just remove the ".txt" extension and run it as ./filename.sh

a. Caller program for each year

b. Caller program for each month

c. Caller program for each variable

7. How can I display my data?

Answers (Saiful Islam, BUET, Bangladesh):

i. You can use default "xcon" by typing "xcon filename.pp"

ii. You can use any graphical program such as GRADS to display it.

iii. You can use IDV exercise provided by Met ofice, UK

a. worksheet4_IDVexercises_Ban.doc

Last updated on April 12, 2010 (c) Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology