Unified Post-Processing (UPP)

The Unified Post Processor (UPP) software package is a software package designed to generate useful products from raw model output.

The UPP is currently used in operations with the Global Forecast System (GFS), GFS Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS), North American Mesoscale (NAM), Rapid Refresh (RAP), High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR), Short Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF), Hurricane WRF (HWRF) applications, and is also used in Unified Forecasting System (UFS) applications.

The UPP provides the capability to compute a variety of diagnostic fields and interpolate to pressure levels or other vertical coordinates.

UPP also incorporates the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) to compute model derived brightness temperature (TB) for various instruments and channels. This additional feature enables the generation of a number of simulated satellite products including GOES products.

Output from the UPP is in National Weather Service (NWS) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) GRIB2 format and can be used directly by visualization, plotting, or verification packages, or for further downstream post-processing, e.g. statistical post-processing techniques.

Examples of UPP products include:

• T, Z, humidity, wind, cloud water, cloud ice, rain, and snow on pressure levels
• SLP, shelter level T, humidity, and wind fields
• Precipitation-related fields
• PBL-related fields
• Severe weather products (e.g. CAPE, Vorticity, Wind shear)
• Radiative/Surface fluxes
• Cloud related fields
• Aviation products
• Radar reflectivity products
• Satellite look-alike products

Support for the UFS UPP is provided through the UFS Forum by the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) for FV3-based applications.

For full documentation see https://noaa-emc.github.io/UPP/.

The UPP uses some of the NCEPLIBS project.

Authors

NCEP/EMC Developers

Code Manager: Wen Meng, Huiya Chuang, Kate Fossell

Prerequisites

This package requires the following NCEPLIBS packages:

• NCEPLIBS-g2
• NCEPLIBS-g2tmpl
• NCEPLIBS-sp
• NCEPLIBS-ip
• NCEPLIBS-bacio
• NCEPLIBS-w3emc
• NCEPLIBS-w3nco
• CRTM

Also required to build NCEPpost executable (cmake option BUILD_POSTEXEC):

• NCEPLIBS-sigio -
• NCEPLIBS-sfcio -
• NCEPLIBS-nemsio -
• NCEPLIBS-gfsio

The NCEPLIBS-wrf_io library is required to build with NCEPpost with WRF-IO library (cmake option BUILD_WITH_WRFIO).

The following third-party libraries are required:

• netcdf-c
• netcdf-fortran
• Jasper
• libpng
• libz

Building

Builds include:

• Operational use GNC build as Wen described for both library and executable (library used for GFS only at this time)

• MRW App uses UPP packaged with nceplibs and cmake to build/run with executable (via release/public-v1 branch).

• SRW App uses UPP repo branch/tag directly and uses cmake to build/run with executable (via release/public-v2 branch).

• Community standalone uses UPP repo branch/tag directly and uses cmake to build/run with executable (via release/public-v2 branch). For these procedures, we add a -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=${INSTALL_PREFIX} where INSTALL_PREFIX is the location of the nceplibs installation as a dependency requirement.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install
(or cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install -DEMC_EXEC_DIR=ON)
make -j 4
make install

Disclaimer

The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) GitHub project code is provided on an "as is" basis and the user assumes responsibility for its use. DOC has relinquished control of the information and no longer has responsibility to protect the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of the information. Any claims against the Department of Commerce stemming from the use of its GitHub project will be governed by all applicable Federal law. Any reference to specific commercial products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply their endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce seal and logo, or the seal and logo of a DOC bureau, shall not be used in any manner to imply endorsement of any commercial product or activity by DOC or the United States Government.