#814 climate output for rainfall is not in the specified units,

[nikhilgupta10]

Units or values appear to be very odd for the rainfall output in climate module. The specified units are being converted from mm/h to inches/hour.

On June 1 of the Tuscon TMY2 data, the value is 14 mm/h according to the User's Manual and GLD is outputting ~0.55 inches/hour (should be ~0.55). So, this looks correct. However, (1) when looking at the entire tmy2 file, it shows all values greater than 5 mm/h (never reaches 0), and (2) when looking at TMY3 data, the rainfall mm/h is never greater than 8 mm/h.

Maybe there is an error in the tmy2 specification? Maybe it should only be columns 124-125 rather than 124-126?

Hmm, something to investigate.

,

[nikhilgupta10]

nikhilgupta10 imported these comments from Sourceforge: "jcfuller":- Description has changed:

Diff:

• status: new --> unassigned
• Resolution: --> none

• Component: Climate --> none ,

  "jcfuller":- status: unassigned --> closed

• Resolution: none --> wontfix

• Component: none --> climate ,

  "jcfuller":The column numbers are correct, just my misunderstanding of the numbering of the columns.

According to the TMY2 data set for Tuscon, all of Tuscon rainfall was classified as a category C or F, and an uncertainty of 8 or 9:

http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/tmy2/PDFs/tmy2man.pdf

Table 3-5. Meteorological Source Flags A Data as received from NCDC, converted to SI units B Linearly interpolated C Non-linearly interpolated to fill data gaps from 6 to 47 hours in length D Not used E Modeled or estimated, except: precipitable water, calculated from radiosonde data; dew point temperature calculated from dry bulb temperature and relative humidity; and relative humidity calculated from dry bulb temperature and dew point temperature F Precipitable water, calculated from surface vapor pressure; aerosol optical depth, estimated from geographic correlation ? Source does not fit any of the above. Used mostly for missing data

Table 3-6. Meteorological Uncertainty Flags

1 - 6 Not used 7 Uncertainty consistent with NWS practices and the instrument or observation used to obtain the data 8 Greater uncertainty than 7 because values were interpolated or estimated 9 Greater uncertainty than 8 or unknown 0 Not definable

So, it appears that GridLAB-D is correctly pulling in the information as provided, but the information is of questionable value.

We will leave this as \won't fix\ for now, as it appears to be a data problem. Suggest a couple future improvements:

1) We could allow flags to be set to only include certain subsets of the source flags, e.g., only A or AB.

2) Add a TMY3 module, where this data appears to be curated differently.,