The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is pleased to announce the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) v6.0.0 public release on June 29,2022. This release contains the CCPP Physics, a library of physical parameterizations, the CCPP Framework, an infrastructure that connects the physics to host models, and the CCPP Single Column Model (SCM), a simple host model that employs the CCPP Physics and CCPP Framework. Additional information and access to the code can be found here.
The CCPP Physics is envisioned to contain parameterizations used in the NOAA Unified Forecast System (UFS) for weather through seasonal prediction timescales, as well as developmental schemes under consideration for upcoming operational implementations. This release contains updated versions of parameterizations used in NOAA’s operational Global Forecast System (GFS) v16 (implemented in 2021), new schemes (the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory two-moment microphysics parameterization, the NOAA Global Systems Laboratory Drag Suite, and the Mellow-Yamada-Nakanishi-Niino surface layer scheme), as well as updated versions of developmental schemes. Additional features include stochastically-perturbed parameterizations and a cellular automata stochastic convective organization capability.
Updates to the CCPP Framework include a new treatment for optional variables, two additional elective phases for the schemes to give them the ability to run selected processes at the beginning and end of a timestep, the ability to track which schemes use a given variable within a suite, and a stub capability to build the basic software caps needed for the compilation of the host model without including any of the physics itself. To facilitate CCPP development, a dictionary of standard names has been created to catalog the names in use and to provide a set of rules for creating new names.
Changes in the SCM include the ability to build using libraries provided via the HPC Stack distribution (replacing the previously-used NCEPLIBS and NCEPLIBS-externals distributions), the combination of single- and multi-run capabilities into one script, an update to the vertical coordinate code to better match the latest Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere (FV3) vertical coordinate, a simplification of the case configuration name lists, and greater flexibility for output location (outside of bin directory). As in the previous release, five experimental cases are available for use with the CCPP SCM: BOMEX maritime shallow convection, LASSO continental shallow convection, ASTEX stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition, ARM SGP Summer 1997 continental deep convection, and TWP-ICE maritime deep convection.
The CCPP parameterizations are aggregated in suites by the host models. CCPP v6.0.0 is supported for use with the UFS Short Range Weather Application v2 (suites GFS_v16, RRFS_v1beta, WoFS_v0, and HRRR) and with the CCPP SCM (all suites available for SRW Application v2 plus the GFSv17_p8 and RAP suites). All suites supported with CCPP v5 have been deprecated. The CCPP v6.0.0 is not intended for use with the UFS Medium-Range Weather Application but a later version will be.
For access to the SCM and CCPP code and documentation, please visit the CCPP website at https://dtcenter.org/ccpp, where you will find a Users’ Guide, a list of known issues, frequently-asked questions, technical documentation, and scientific documentation. For information about the UFS, including its use with CCPP, please visit https://ufscommunity.org/.
For questions or comments about the CCPP and the SCM, please use our Forum at http://dtcenter.org/forum/ccpp-user-support. When using CCPP with the UFS, you can also direct your questions to the UFS community forum.
Ligia Bernardet and Mike Ek, on behalf of the DTC CCPP team (Grant Firl, Man Zhang, Mike Kavulich, Dustin Swales, and Jimy Dudhia)
