JULES logo

JULES From Scratch is an alternative how-to for those who don't work on a system where Cylc, Rose and FCM have already been installed and/or can't use the Met Office Virtual Machine (e.g. for security reasons). I (Toby Marthews) wrote the first version of it in 2017. I'm also assuming little or no familiarity with any recent version of JULES.

I've been using JULES since 2008 when I was involved with a carbon cycle project at Univ. Oxford (which led to Marthews et al. 2012). During the first half of 2017 (now working at UKCEH) I rewrote and reorganised the JULES website (i.e. this website you are reading). As part of this, I created new pages there for all the JULES tutorials I could find (under Training) and a complete set of pages about how to get started using the model (under Getting Started).

JULES From Scratch is my tutorial for JULES. In order to follow it and get JULES running, you will need quite a few things in place on your system first (please check through this list of necessities). If you have all those in place, you just need to install a few programs on your Linux/UNIX system (see below) and you'll be good to go.

YOU WILL NEED CYLC, ROSE and FCM:

Ideally, these three will be installed globally by your system administrator, but if that isn't possible (or you are the system administrator) then you will need to go through some/all of these steps for a local installation. First check what is on your system by putting these commands into a UNIX shell:

cd ~
echo $SHELL
     #You need to be in a bash shell, so if this returns anything except "/bin/bash" ask your system administrator how you can get into bash
xmessage -center hello!
     #You need to have X11 forwarding activated. If this opens a little window to say Hello then you are OK, but if it says "Can't open display" then check (i) you did use "-X" in the options to log in on your ssh command and (ii) your terminal program (e.g. MobaXTerm, XQuartz) has been set up to accept X11 Forwarding.
xclock
xeyes
     #xclock and xeyes are alternative tests for X11 forwarding: these both try to open separate windows and will fail if X11 is not activated (depending on how fun your IT Support people are, you may have more of these things installed http://cyber.dabamos.de/unix/x11/ and can try them too).
cat ~/.bashrc
     #Check your .bashrc file and make sure that it has been set up correctly. For example, on JASMIN you may need to have a PATH= command in there (described here) to get Cylc, Rose and FCM working.
     #The best way to sort out your .bashrc is to copy someone else's on the system. On JASMIN, you are welcome to copy any commands you see in my one: look at geany ~tmarthews/.bashrc & (access is not restricted).

 

NOW GO THROUGH ALL FOUR SUBPAGES BELOW (even if some/all of them are already installed, your personal profile settings may not be correct for using JULES so please do anyway go through the STEPs in these pages).

  • Install Cylc from GitHub following these steps
  • Install Rose from GitHub following these steps (inc. what goes in your ~/.metomi/rose.conf file, which each user needs to set up separately)
  • Install FCM from GitHub following these steps (includes caching your MOSRS password *** which is compulsory for all users before using JULES *** and what goes in your ~/.subversion/servers and ~/.metomi/fcm/keyword.cfg files, which each user needs to set up separately)
  • Install JULES itself following these steps (this includes the download command for getting hold of a particular version of JULES).

Once you have all of that installed, you're ready to actually use the model (!). Most likely you will wish to run JULES for a particular site or region. As explained here, this will involve assembling control files, driving data and ancillary data (collectively called a configuration for the run).

 

NOW OPEN THE PDF BELOW AND CONTINUE THERE:

Click here for the tutorial slides: SLIDES


     Click here for a video version of the July 2021 version of these slides: https://youtu.be/dD-tUfvUt_k (subtitles available if you click "CC")
          Click here for an update from October 2022: https://youtu.be/eWYY-EP0giM

** NOTE from April 2024: these slides will be updated again soon (hopefully before the end of 2024) **