How to visualize vertical profiles from WRF in Matlab

A vertical profile is a graph of an atmospheric variable, such as wind speed or temperature, as a function of height above the terrain, in a fixed horizontal location. Vertical profiles can be measured e.g. by tethered sondes or sensors on meteorological towers. Computation of a vertical profile from the state of an atmospheric model is useful for validation of simulations and as an observation function for data assimilation.

Prerequisites

• Matlab
• Get and run WRF-Fire

Step by step direction

• cd wrf-fire/WRFV3/test/em_fire and start Matlab from the command line: matlab &
• Alternatively, change to the above directory from inside Matlab command window and run startup.
• In Matlab,
  • type help vprofile for more information
  • change to directory with WRF NetCDF input or output files.
  • run the vprofile command

Examples

• vprofile('wrfout_d01_0001-01-01_00:01:00',100,100,1) will generate the profile at location 100m north and 100m west of the south-east corner of the domain from the specified wrfout file at history step 1
• vprofile('wrfinput_d01',100,100,[]) will generate the same profile from the WRF input file (this file is created by ideal.exe or real.exe).