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Announcing the release of MCIP Version 3.0 (September 2005).
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This is a major upgrade to the MCIP code.  This version of MCIP includes 
several new features and other minor changes.  Changes to MCIP were made 
by Tanya Otte (NOAA/ARL/ASMD and EPA/ORD/NERL, RTP, NC), and user 
contributions are also noted below.  The detailed list of changes to the MCIP 
code is in the CHANGES file.


Also new with this release is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file. 
Users are encouraged to read the FAQ to obtain information specific to 
changes made in this release, particularly on using MCIPv3.0 with WRF. 
Users should read the FAQ before submitting inquiries to M3User, M3List, 
Bugzilla, CMAS, or the code developers.


Special thanks are extended to the MCIPv3 Beta Testing Team.  In particular, 
the following users provided important feedback that contributed to making 
the MCIPv3.0 code more robust:  Kirk Baker (LADCO), 
Kip Smith (WeatherSmith, LLC), Pedro Sanhueza (U. Santiago, Chile), 
Qi Mao and Toree Cook (TVA), Maria Prodanova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 
Bulgaria), Fantine Ngan (U. Houston), and Zion Wang (U. California, Riverside).


The following are among the notable changes for MCIPv3.0:

1.  Capability to process both MM5 and WRF-EM (NCAR core, or
    Advanced Research WRF) in the same code.  WRF-EM capability
    is based on extending and refining of the prototype "WCIP"
    (based on MCIPv2.2, but for WRF only) developed at U. Houston.
    Thanks to Seung-Bum Kim (formerly at U. Houston, now at Yonsei
    U., Korea) and Daewon Byun (U. Houston) for making WCIP
    available.  Extensive discussions with Jon Pleim (NOAA/ARL/ASMD
    and EPA/ORD/NERL/AMD, RTP, NC) contributed to providing
    appropriate state variables for WRF.

2.  Optional dry deposition velocities for 6 chlorine species and
    2 mercury species with M3Dry scheme.  These new dry deposition
    velocities support modeling efforts that will soon become
    available in CMAQ.  In addition, some dry deposition arrays
    have been moved to new routines.  Chlorine research contributed
    by Golam Sarwar (EPA/ORD/NERL, RTP, NC).  Mercury research
    contributed by Russ Bullock (NOAA/ARL/ASMD and EPA/ORD/NERL/AMD,
    RTP, NC).  Suggestion for consolidating dry deposition arrays
    contributed by Bill Hutzell (EPA/ORD/NERL, RTP, NC).

3.  Corrections to processing data for domains centered in the
    Southern Hemisphere.  Issue raised by Pedro Sanhueza (U.
    Santiago, Chile) and Christine Wiedinmyer (NCAR, Boulder, CO).

4.  Optimized processing of extracted meteorological fields for
    MCIP from input meteorology.  Optimization adapted from ideas
    developed by David Wong (Lockheed Martin, RTP, NC).

5.  Capability to process MCIP on all input meteorology vertical
    levels without knowing structure a priori.  Idea suggested by
    Zac Adelman (U. North Carolina) and anonymous class member at
    CMAS training class.

6.  Expanded maximum number of input meteorology files.  Idea
    suggested by several users.

7.  Modified layer height calculations for MM5v3 to be based
    explicitly on reference state formulae in NCAR documentation
    of non-hydrostatic MM5.

8.  Modified interpolation for MM5 wind components on C-grid
    (UHAT and VHAT) to involve fewer interpolation steps.

9.  Use 10-m wind components from MM5 and WRF (if available) to
    calculate 10-m wind speed and direction, rather than using
    similarity theory.  Use similarity theory for 10-m winds only
    if components are not available in output (e.g., for Pleim-Xiu
    LSM in MM5).

10. Added capability to process fractional land use information for
    the RADM dry deposition and PBL recalculation algorithms with MM5
    input fields.  Requires MM5 "TERRAIN" file (or other preprocessing
    file) as additional input and "IEXTRA" flag set in TERRAIN to
    generate fractional land use fields.  Idea suggested by Daewon
    Byun (U. Houston).

11. Created new output field, PURB, in GRIDCRO2D file.  PURB is the
    percentage of urban area in the grid cell scaled against the non-
    water portions of the grid cell.  Supports new option to calculate
    minimum Kz in CMAQ v4.5.

12. Added I/O API 3 call to check internal MCIP parameters against
    I/O API library for consistency.  This modification is important
    for institutions that have, for example, increased the maximum
    number of species used in CMAQ.

13. Removed option to interpolate input meteorology fields to a finer
    horizontal grid spacing (in favor of optimizing code).

14. Generalized meteorology ingest arrays so that they are in terms of
    (X,Y,Z) rather than (Y,X,Z) (as was the default array structure for
    MM5).

15. Updated compiler options in Makefile for IBM, PGF90, and Intel compilers
    to include both optimized and debugging options.

16. Updated script to reflect new features.