New cycle CY26T1/AL26T1

Here is a brief overlook of the modified or new features in cycle 26, compared with cycle 25:

The validation is well advanced, but some ALADIN developments remain in a shaky situation:

The next cycle 27 will be much more difficult for ARPEGE and ALADIN configurations, since it will concern the new data flow in the core of the model. The new data flow layout is under preparation by Mats Hamrud. It will allow for a more flexible definition of new variables, in the frame of a pre-defined Fortran90 structure, with several control keys (advected, spectrally transformed, etc...).

There will however first be a number of impacts on the ALADIN code that will require a recoding of some obsolete parts (gridpoint data coupling, NHS buffers for auxiliary variables). Some implications might not have been foreseen for the time being !

The ALADIN phasing to CY27 will probably take place over october/november 2003. In between AL26T1 and CY27, a cycle AL26T2 should be created to introduce the cleaned physics interface (MF_PHYS, APLPAR), mostly developped by M. Bellus and L. Kullmann under the supervision of J.F. Geleyn and F. Bouyssel.