Command line interface

alcf-auto – Peform automatic processing of model or lidar data.

Synopsis

alcf auto model <model_type> <lidar_type> point: { <lon> <lat> } time: { <start> <end> } [<options>] [<model_options>] [<lidar_options>] [--] <input> <output>

alcf auto model <model_type> <lidar_type> track: <track> [<options>] [<model_options>] [<lidar_options>] [--] <input> <output>

alcf auto lidar <lidar_type> [<options>] [<lidar_options>] [--] <input> <output>

Description

alcf auto model is equivalent to the sequence of commands:

alcf model
alcf simulate
alcf lidar
alcf stats
alcf stats (fine-scale)
alcf stats (clear-sky fine-scale)
alcf plot backscatter
alcf plot backscatter_hist
alcf plot backscatter_hist (fine-scale)
alcf plot backscatter_hist (clear-sky fine-scale)
alcf plot cloud_occurrence
alcf plot cbh

alcf auto lidar is equivalent to the sequence of commands:

alcf lidar
alcf stats
alcf stats (fine-scale)
alcf stats (clear-sky fine-scale)
alcf plot backscatter
alcf plot backscatter_hist
alcf plot backscatter_hist (fine-scale)
alcf plot backscatter_hist (clear-sky fine-scale)
alcf plot cloud_occurrence
alcf plot cbh

Arguments following -- are treated as literal strings. Use this delimiter if the input or output file names might otherwise be interpreted as non-strings, e.g. purely numerical file names.

Arguments

end: End time (see Time format below).
input: Input directory containing model or lidar data, or, in case of alcf auto compare, the output of alcf auto model or alcf auto lidar.
lat: Point latitutde.
lidar_options: See alcf lidar options.
lidar_type: Lidar type (see Lidar types below).
lon: Point longitude.
model_options: See alcf model options.
model_type: Model type (see Model types below).
options: See Options below.
plot_options: See alcf plot options.
start: Start time (see Time format below).
track: Track NetCDF file (see Track below).

Options

skip: <step>: Skip all processing steps before <step>. <step> is one of: model, simulate, lidar, stats, plot. Default: none.

Model types

amps: Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS).
era5: ERA5.
icon: ICON.
icon_intake_healpix: ICON through Intake-ESM on HEALPix grid.
jra55: JRA-55.
merra2: Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2).
nzcsm: New Zealand Convection Scale Model (NZCSM).
nzesm: New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM) (experimental).
um: UK Met Office Unified Model (UM).

Lidar types

blview: Vaisala BL-VIEW L2 product.
caliop: CALIPSO/CALIOP (alcf auto model only).
chm15k: Lufft CHM 15k.
ct25k: Vaisala CT25K. IMPORTANT: The simulator currently assumes wavelength of 910 nm instead of the actual instrument wavelength of 905 nm.
cl31: Vaisala CL31.
cl51: Vaisala CL51.
cl61: Vaisala CL61.
cn_chm15k: Cloudnet Lufft CHM 15k.
cn_ct25k: Cloudnet Vaisala CT25K.
cn_cl31: Cloudnet Vaisala CL31.
cn_cl51: Cloudnet Vaisala CL51.
cn_cl61: Cloudnet Vaisala CL61.
cn_minimpl: Cloudnet Sigma Space MiniMPL.
cosp: COSP simulated lidar.
default: The same format as the output of alcf lidar.
minimpl: Sigma Space MiniMPL (converted via SigmaMPL).
mpl: Sigma Space MPL (converted via SigmaMPL).
mpl2nc: Sigma Space MPL and MiniMPL (converted via mpl2nc).

Time format

YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM[:SS]], where YYYY is year, MM is month, DD is day, HH is hour, MM is minute, SS is second. Example: 2000-01-01T00:00:00.

Examples

Simulate a Vaisala CL51 instrument from MERRA-2 data in M2I3NVASM.5.12.4 at 45 S, 170 E between 1 and 2 January 2020 and store the output in alcf_merra2.

alcf auto model merra2 cl51 point: { -45.0 170.0 } time: { 2020-01-01 2020-01-02 } M2I3NVASM.5.12.4 alcf_merra2

Process Lufft CHM 15k data in chm15k and store the output in alcf_chm15k.

alcf auto lidar chm15k chm15k_data alcf_chm15k

ALCF

Automatic Lidar and Ceilometer
Framework