Description

When testing new (or old) code, or trying to debug odd model behavior, especially in physics development, it's helpful to have a cheap, simplified idealized capability. While there are some hard-coded test cases in atmos_cubed_sphere, many are disused or completely non-functional in the UFS framework.

Solution

Implement a new, run-time customizable idealized test on a doubly-periodic domain that can be run with CCPP physics and has the option of reading in external soundings (akin to WRF's ideal.exe) to initialized model state. This capability has been in use at NSSL for a few years, so it's just a matter of fixing up the code and contributing it back to the community.

Alternatives

N/A

Related to

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cc @MicroTed as he's been instrumental in working on this capability with me