Table of Contents - The Atmospheric Studies Group at TRC

Section 7: Prognostic Meteorological Interfaces
The output from TAPM is an ASCII file and is machine-independent. CALTAPM simply transforms the
data into the correct file format compatible with CALMET. CALTAPM is easily executed on a pc.
Detailed information about TAPM settings is included in the list file (CALTAPM.LST) as shown in
Table 7-33. Information needed for consistency in CALMET is included in the 3D.DAT header records
as well. CALTAPM preprocessor requires a set of common block and parameter files for compiling. It
needs one user-input file to run (CALTAPM.INP, hard-wired filename), and produces two output files
(CALTAPM.LST and 3D.DAT). Output filenames are determined by users.
CALTAPM Input Files
TAPM.OUTA - TAPM ASCII output file of the type *.OUTA
TAPM The following steps below must be followed in order to generate a 3-Dimensional data file
(3D.DAT) from TAPM using CALTAPM.
1. First run TAPM according to the instruction manual prepared by CSIRO (Hurley 2005). It is
recommended to run TAPM using multiple nested grids, at least 3 nests with > 30 vertical levels.
2. Once TAPM has finished executing, use the Utilities command found on the File Menu
Command of the TAPM GUI to convert the TAPM binary output file, *.OUT to an ASCII
*.OUTA file. Usually the innermost nest is converted since it has the finest resolution and detail.
CALTAPM Control File
CALTAPM.INP
In CALTAPM.INP, the user can specify the input and output file names and the period to extract. The
boundaries of the domain are not required as CALTAPM will transform the entire domain. It is up to the
user to select the correct model domain when creating a 3D.DAT file from TAPM model output.
A sample CALTAPM.INP is shown in Table 7-26 and a description of each input variable is provided in
Table 7-6.
CALTAPM Output Files
CALTAPM.LST
The list file contains information about the TAPM file and reports on CALTAPM processing, including
warnings and error messages. A sample list file is shown in Table 7-26.
3D.DAT
A sample 3D.DAT file is shown and described in section (7.7).
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