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Running the MOM6–CICE6–WW3 Coupled Model

This guide provides a workflow for running the coupled MOM6–CICE6–WW3 model in ACCESS-OM3 using prebuilt executables and existing configuration input files. It assumes no local builds or compilation.

1. Load Required Modules

First, configure your environment by loading the appropriate modules:

module use /g/data/vk83/modules
module load payu

2. Clone the Wave Configuration

Use payu to clone one of the existing wave-coupled ACCESS-OM3 configurations:

For RYF forcing:

payu clone --branch dev-MCW_100km_jra_ryf   git@github.com:ACCESS-NRI/access-om3-configs.git wav_config_ryf

For IAF forcing:

payu clone --branch dev-MCW_100km_jra_iaf   git@github.com:ACCESS-NRI/access-om3-configs.git wav_config_iaf

This creates a working directory (wav_config_ryf/ or wav_config_iaf/) containing the configuration files.

3. (Optional) Regenerate WW3 Input Files

This step is only required if you modify the WW3 pre-processing inputs:

  • WW3_PreProc/ww3_grid.nml — to change grid or spectral discretization
  • WW3_PreProc/ww3_strt.inp — to change restart/initialization setup

Important:
If you modify WW3_PreProc/namelists_Global.nml, this affects WW3 physics and requires recompiling ACCESS-OM3 with matching WW3 compile-time switches. This cannot be handled by namelists alone.

To regenerate input files:

  1. Load the module version matching your config.yaml:
module use /g/data/vk83/modules
module load access-om3/<version>  # Use exact version listed in config.yaml
  1. Run preprocessing tools from the config directory:
cd <wave_config_directory>/WW3_PreProc

# Generate mod_def.ww3
ww3_grid

# Generate restart.ww3
ww3_strt

This creates updated mod_def.ww3 and restart.ww3 in the WW3_PreProc directory.

4. Modify config.yaml (if using regenerated WW3 files)

If you regenerated WW3 input files, update your config.yaml file:

Replace the default WW3 input paths with the regenerated ones:

input:
  - <wave_config_directory>/WW3_PreProc/restart.ww3
  - <wave_config_directory>/WW3_PreProc/mod_def.ww3

Replace <wave_config_directory> with your actual path.

If you haven’t changed anything in WW3_PreProc, you can skip steps 3 and 4 entirely.

5. Run the Model

From the configuration directory:

Clean and initialize:

payu sweep

Start the run:

payu run

This will launch the MOM6–CICE6–WW3 coupled model using your configured setup and inputs.