VERSION 4 OF RIP PROGRAM
(updated April 1, 2003)

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Update: December, 2006
Add changes so that all data from WPS can be processed
	Only file affected is src/ripdp_wrf.f
Add some typhoon tracking capabilities
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This is the main directory of RIP program for visualizing mesoscale model
output.  Everything a user needs to run the RIP program, except for NCAR
Graphics and NetCDF libraries, is contained in this directory.

RIP requires NCAR Graphics to run. NCAR Graphics is free and part of the
NCAR Command Language (NCL).  For information on NCAR Graphics, please visit

    http://ngwww.ucar.edu

Part of RIP (the WRF-model version of the preprocessing program RIPDP) requires
NetCDF libraries to run.  NetCDF is free software available from

   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf

This version of RIP may be run on Cray, unix workstations, and PC
running Linux.

All fortran source code is located in directory src/.

For bug fixes, please read file CHANGES.  For actual diff files,
please see directory Diff.

For questions, please send emails to wrfhelp@ucar.edu

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What is in V4 RIP?

RIP is plotting program developed by Dr. Mark Stoelinga at University of
Washington. It is currently configured to plot MM5 Version 3 pressure-level
data; MM4 Version 8 and MM5 Version 1/2/3 sigma level data; and WRF
mass-coordinate model output.  However, the plotting program itself is general
enough that it would be quite feasible to plot output from any mesoscale model,
if a version of the preprocessing program RIPDP was created to translate that
model output into RIP data files.

RIP4 removed all references to MM5-specific vertical coordinate, such
as sigma and p-star and so on. All calculations are based solely upon the
knowledge of height and pressure on the 3D grid and height and pressure
of the ground (i.e. terrain height and surface pressure).

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RIP documentation:

The document "A Users' Guide to RIP Version 4", by Mark
Stoelinga, is a comprenesive guide to all aspects of RIP Version
4, including set-up (compilation, etc.), data pre-processing with
the program RIPDP, and the use of RIP itself.  The User's Guide
is written maintained as a Microsoft Word document, and is also made available
as an HTML document.  Both can be found in the RIP tar file
in Doc/ripug.html.  The html document can also be accessed on the web from the
MM5 Web Site, http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/mm5/documents/ripug_V4.html.

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NCAR Graphics option: 

If you have NCAR Graphics version 4.3 or newer and wish to use the 
new RANGS/GSHHS outline data sets, uncomment the relevant code in hmapdraw.f
(search for RANGS/GSHHS).

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IBM operation note:

When running on an IBM SP2, if the namelist in rip.in
is in the default format of beginning and ending 
with a "&", then an environment variable must be
set to recognize this.  The command is:

        setenv XLFRTEOPTS "namelist=old"

.  If one desires to run on the IBM without setting 
this variable, the namelist delimiters must be modified 
to begin with "&" and end with "/".

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Files/directories in this directory:

CHANGES:     will contain changes made to this tar file

Diff/:       directory that contains files with actual differences
                (generated with "diff") between versions
Doc/:	     RIP documentation directory
Makefile:    top-level makefile
README:	     basic information on RIP
color.tbl:   color table for RIP
psadilookup.dat: lookup table for obtaining T from p and theta-e
x.in:        input files for RIP programs
tserstn.dat  sample list of stations for time series print out
src/:        directory that holds all source code for RIP
stationlist: observation location file