GEOS-ESM / GEOS-ESM/FVdycoreCubed_GridComp

Units reported for horizontal mass flux appear to be incorrect

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#174 4 comments 0 reactions 2 assignees View on GitHub

@mathomp4 is already working on this.

Since Aug 16, 2022.

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Description

The horizontal mass flux units are reported as Pa m+2 s-1, but are listed as accumulated mass flux (presumably accumulated over the time step):

https://github.com/GEOS-ESM/FVdycoreCubed_GridComp/blob/b331e2ae0339bde84d63eacd911c36befe74d735/DynCore_GridCompMod.F90#L1014

Reading the routine fv_tp_2d, it also appears that mfxxyz should indeed be the accumulated mass flux, which should have units of Pa m+2 (Pa m+2 = kg * g) rather than Pa m+2 s-1. If this is correct, then the vertical mass flux calculated in fv_computeVerticalMassFluxes is receiving the accumulated flux rather than the average mass flux, and will be outputting accumulated vertical flux (kg m-2) rather than the average flux (i.e. kg m-2 s-1). This makes sense given that the resolution to a prior issue (https://github.com/GEOS-ESM/FVdycoreCubed_GridComp/issues/159) means that the time step is no longer used in fv_getVerticalMassFluxes, so an accumulated horizontal flux can only yield an accumulated vertical flux.

The solution is easy - the units of the MFX and MFY exports should either be changed to Pa m+2, or (preferably) the exported data should be divided by dt, as should the data provided to fv_getVerticalMassFluxes. This would ensure that the archived data are truly fluxes and not accumulated fluxes. Flagging @wmputman and @mathomp4 who I think will be able to evaluate whether this is correct or not, and flagging @LiamBindle as it's relevant to a reviewer question.

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