Create surface file

In this step you will create the surface data file using the mksurfdata.pl script. First, we will compile the script with make in the mksurfdata/src directory.

cd ../mksurfdata/src

# Compile the script
make

The script needs a few environment variables such as GRIDNAME (exported in the previous step), CDATE (date of creation of the mapping files which can be found at the end of each map_* file before the file extension) and CSMDATA (the path where the raw data for the surface file creation is stored) before executing the script.

export CDATE=`date +%y%m%d`
export CSMDATA="/p/scratch/cslts/shared_data/rlmod_eCLM/inputdata/" # this works for JSC users only, for non JSC users see below 

# generate surfdata
./mksurfdata.pl -r usrspec -usr_gname $GRIDNAME -usr_gdate $CDATE -l $CSMDATA -allownofile -y 2000 -crop

Tip

The -crop option used in ./mksurfdata.pl will create a surface file for BGC mode with all crops active. If you want to use SP mode, you should run without this option.

Use ./mksurfdata.pl -help to display all options possible for this script. For example:

• hirespft - If you want to use the high-resolution pft dataset rather than the default lower resolution dataset (low resolution is at half-degree, high resolution at 3minute), hires is only available for present-day (2000)

For non JSC users: Non JSC users can download the raw data from HSC datapub using this link or from the official rawdata repository using wget before submitting the script.

wget "RAWDATA_LINK"/"NAME_OF_RAWDATA_FILE" --no-check-certificate # repeat this for every rawdata file

You will see a “Successfully created fsurdat files” message displayed at the end of the script if it ran through.

The output will be a netCDF file similar to surfdata_"your grid name"_hist_78pfts_CMIP6_simyr2000_c"yymmdd".nc.

Congratulations! You successfully created your surface data file! In the next step you will learn how to create your own atmospheric forcings.