One of the most exciting aspects of ocean simulation is the opportunity to visualize and animate the evolution of the model variables in time and space. Making movies that progress smoothly requires either output of model variables frequently enough to avoid jerkiness or temporal interpolation of model variables to similarly frequent intervals. Experience has shown that a snapshot every three days (see movie_freq) gives satisfactory results. Any variable can be output, but to reduce archiving cost and retrieval time, movie files typically contain only a few two-dimensional arrays, such as sea-surface temperature, salinity and height, and a few sub-surface variables. The choice of fields is made through an input movie contents file containing the names (one per line) of the fields requested. A sample file is included with a list of available fields; the user may modify this list to choose the desired fields. If a field does not appear in the list of available fields, the user may add fields by modifying the source code as described in the Reference Manual.
| &movie_nml | generation of snapshot movie files | |
| movie_freq_opt | ['never'], 'nstep', 'nyear','nmonth','nday', 'nhour','nsecond' | units of time for movie_freq |
| movie_freq | [100000] | number of units between output of movie files |
| movie_outfile | ['unknown'] | root filename with path of movie file output (suffixes will be added) |
| movie_fmt | ['bin'],'nc' | format for movie file output (binary or netCDF) |
| movie_contents | ['sample_movie_contents'] | input file containing names of fields requested for movie output |
| / |
| Name | Units | Description |
| SHGT | cm | surface height |
| UTRANS | cm2/s | vertically integrated 'zonal' transport |
| VTRANS | cm2/s | vertically integrated 'meridional' transport |
| TEMP1_2 | °C | potential temperature averaged over levels 1,2 |
| SALT1_2 | g/g (msu) | salinity averaged over levels 1,2 |
| TEMP6 | °C | potential temperature at level 6 |
| SALT6 | g/g (msu) | salinity at level 6 |
| VORT | 1/s | relative vorticity at surface |