ECMWF is updating the default versions of its software packages and libraries used across all user platforms at the centre as part of the regular update cycle.

The changes will take place on Wednesday 13 November 2019 11:00 - 11:30 UTC

All user platforms at the centre will see their default additional software stack updated:

All clusters in our High Performance Computing Facility, mainly CCA and CCB
ECGATE
Linux Clusters
Linux Desktops

The next defaults are tagged as "nov19" in modules. After the session the previous defaults will be tagged as "old"

Highlights

A number of bug fixes and performance improvements have been introduced on the different versions to become default. Here are some of the most relevant new features:

ecCodes, the heart of GRIB and BUFR handling, brings its usual support for new GRIB parameters along with numerous fixes for extra stability. There are performance improvements for decoding/encoding GRIB data in a multi-threaded program as well as new options for the grib_ls and grib_dump tools.
Metview, ECMWF's interactive and batch software for manipulation and plotting of data, brings several new Macro/Python functions, including ml_to_hl(), which converts GRIB data from model levels to height above ground or sea level. Also in this release is an improved inline Help sidebar in the Code Editor.
CodesUI, the standalone combination of Metview's GRIB and BUFR examiners, added new tab called Descriptors to show all the expanded descriptors (metadata only) of the given message.
Magics, ECMWF's plotting library, adds some smaller fixes.

How to use the new versions for testing BEFORE the update

Users are strongly encouraged to test their software applications and data processing chain with the new versions of the various software packages before the date of the change to the default versions.

The new versions of the software packages can be selected by using the nov19 tag in modules. For example:

module swap metview/nov19
module load Magics/nov19
module load bufrdc/nov19
module swap eccodes/nov19

How to revert to the old versions in case of problems AFTER the update

Users that experience problems with the new default software packages after the update will be able to revert to the old default versions. These can be selected with the commands:

module swap metview/old
module load Magics/old
module load bufrdc/old
module swap eccodes/old

Please let ECMWF know if you need to revert to the old version of any of the packages after the update of the defaults has taken place.

Version changes

This table summarises the changes in the version of the different packages:

Package	Default version		Release notes	Download page
Package	Before	After	Release notes	Download page
CodesUI	1.2.4	1.2.7	CodesUI - Change History	CodesUI - Releases
ecCodes	2.12.5	2.14.0	Latest news	ecCodes Releases
ecFlow	4.12.0	4.17.0	Latest news	ecFlow Releases
Magics	4.0.3	4.2.0	Latest News	Magics Releases
Metview	5.5.4	5.7.2	Change History	Metview Releases Metview Bundle
ODB API	0.18.1	0.19.1	Change history	ODB API Releases
ODB	1.0.8	1.0.11	-	-

Please see the Release notes for full details of the changes implemented in each package.

ecCodes is now the official ECMWF encoder and decoder for GRIB and BUFR formats. It superseded GRIB-API, for the GRIB format, and EMOSLIB, for the BUFR. If you still use any of those, we encourage you to migrate to ecCodes. EMOSLIB is, in fact, no longer updated. The standalone BUFRDC package is also installed to help in the migration.

Package	Default version
Package	Before	After
BUFRDC	4.6.1	4.6.3

Table of contents

Highlights

How to use the new versions for testing BEFORE the update

How to revert to the old versions in case of problems AFTER the update

Version changes