The FIM Global Model
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2-m Temperature
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Precipitable Water/500hPa Height
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250hPa Wind
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Total 5-day Accumulated Precip
A unique combination of 3 numerical design features
- Icosahedral horizontal grid, mostly hexagons except for 12 pentagons ("I" in FIM)
- Isentropic-sigma hybrid vertical coordinate, adaptive, concentrates around frontal zones,
tropopause, similar to RUC model ("F" for Flow-following in FIM)
- Finite-volume horizontal transport (Also under "F", for "finite-volume" in FIM)
News Items
- Nov 2016 - FIM moving toward FV3 -- FV3 coordination and development started
with NCEP and GFDL and ESRL/PSD. Some limited FIM experiments with physics and coupled modeling
(Week 3-4) will continue as an interim model while initial development on FV3 starts.
- Oct 2016 - 30km FIM experiments continue with alternative cumulus parameterizations comparisons.
FIM-30km
uses the
GFS physics suite including its simplified-Arakawa-Schubert scheme.
By contrast,
FIMX-alt-30km
uses the Grell-Freitas instead of the SAS scheme with the rest of the
GFS physics suite otherwise.
Similar tests with Grell-Freitas convection will also be carried out with FV3 in future experiments
toward NGGPS development.
FIM-15km
uses the GFS physics suite, but with use of MODIS land-use data instead
of USGS.
-
FIM model paper
- Mon. Wea. Rev. June 2015, 2386-2403.
- July 2015
- FIM running with GFS-2015 physics (slightly more accurate, FIM8/FIM9)
and GFS-2012 physics (FIM8zeus/FIM9zeus). FIM8 also running with latest
Grell-Freitas convective scheme (FIMXzeus, using GFS-2015 physics otherwise).
HIWPP data availability continues as started in Feb 2015.
- Feb 2015
- Open data availability with 1/8 deg hourly FIM-15km (FIM9) experimental data through NOAA
HIWPP program,
and specifically, the
HIWPP Open Data Initiative.
-
Jan 2015 - FIM model update:
refined icosahedral grid with more uniform size, hourly 1/8 degree output,
refined snow/rain output, snow accumulation output,
versions now running with 2011-GFS physics suite and 2015-GFS-T1534.
-
11 April 2014 - Update:
A revised spring-2014 version of the FIM, with improvements primarily in numerics, is ready
for application to the 2014 hurricane season.
The 15km version of this updated
FIM global model will provide experimental forecast guidance to the National
Hurricane Center for the 2014 season, as funded under the NOAA
Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project. Key improvements for 2014 are
incorporation of a high-resolution MODIS land-use data-set, which refines
for land-water contrast and land-use down to 15km or 10km resolution,
a refined icosahedral grid (more regular polygons), improved momentum
interpolation to polygon sides, and improved vertical regridding.
-
March 2014 - Update:
FIM9 (15km, on jet) graphical products are now being produced over North America
at a 13km resolution for the US subregions (e.g.,NW, SW, NC, SC, NE, SE, Great Lakes)
also available for the Rapid Refresh..
-
January 2014 - Update:
An evaluation of the 2013 version of the FIM
is available in
this document.