2. Unstructured Grid (UGRID) - LFRic output format#

This module introduces the unstructured world of meshes which are now used in LFRic.

In this module you will learn about…

  • why LFRic output is organised around an unstructured cubed-sphere mesh rather than a latitude-longitude grid;

  • how the UGRID convention describes mesh geometry and topology using nodes, edges, faces, and connectivity;

  • where LFRic quantities are placed on the mesh, including the distinction between face-based and edge-based data;

  • which Python tools support each stage of the workflow, from loading and inspecting data with Iris to visualising unstructured meshes with PyVista, VTK, and GeoVista;

  • why familiar tasks such as plotting, regridding, and regional extraction need different methods for mesh-based data.

At the end of this module you should be able to…

  • describe the practical differences between structured grids and unstructured meshes in LFRic Atmosphere output;

  • recognise the main UGRID mesh elements and explain how they are used to store LFRic data;

  • choose appropriate tools to load, inspect, visualise, regrid, and subset mesh-based LFRic data;

  • use the mesh tutorial notebooks to load example LFRic data and examine its cube, coordinate, and mesh metadata;

  • produce basic plots and visualisations of LFRic mesh data and interpret what they show;

  • extract data for a geographical region and explain why this differs from simple latitude-longitude array slicing.

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