Unified Model

The Unified Model is the atmospheric component of ACCESS, developed by the UK's Met Office. The Centre of Excellence sublicences the UM from CAWCR, our licence allows us to run the UM at NCI only. To run the UM you will first need an NCI account, then ask for connection to the ACCESS group through NCI's account website.

The ACCESS climate models are based on version 7.3 of the UM, most Australian university research uses this version. The Bureau makes use of the more recent version 7.8 for forecasting, and is evaluating moving to version 8.2. These are the primary versions supported at NCI, other versions are available but may not be quite as well tested. Different versions include changed science configurations, for details see the release notes.

Getting Started

The UM is configured through a graphical interface, which is run from the server Accessdev. Follow the Set Up Instructions for the version of the model you want to run.

There are two ways to run the model. Newer versions (post UM 10) use Rose & Cylc, older versions (pre UM 10) use a program called UMUI.

The Met Office have a tutorial for the model at https://code.metoffice.gov.uk/doc/um/latest/

A variety of model configurations are within the Centre. Feel free to contact CMS to discuss the different model types and what might be most appropriate for your work. If you plan on contributing work to the Met Office make sure you use the most recent version of the model.


UM 10 / Global Atmosphere / ACCESS 2.x

The current version of the Unified Model is available from the Met Office's repository site https://code.metoffice.gov.uk.

ARCCSS researchers need to email cws_help@nci.org.au to request an account on the Met Office server.

Links & More Information

Pre-UM 10

See Unified Model pre10 for documentation on older versions of the model

Experiments

A full list of experiments we support or have helped set up can be found at UM Experiments

These configurations are currently our primary support targets:

Guides

Assorted information on running the UM and available job configurations is listed in the sections below. Feel free to email climate_help@nci.org.au if you have any difficulties using the UM or suggestions for how we can make using the UM simpler.

Starting Up

Run Types

Common Errors

If a run fails, search for 'UM ERROR' in the .leave file to see what went wrong. Common issues are listed here

Job Input

Job Output

Modifying the UM

Informative

UM and ACCESS FAQs

Resources