We are happy to announce the December 2015 release of the standard ECMWF software packages. The main change from the November releases is the new version of Emoslib. Version 4.2.1 of Emoslib was the first version which introduced full support for the new octahedral reduced Gaussian grid which ECMWF will use in its forecast system from Spring 2016 onwards. We were aware that this version had a suboptimal performance. This was addressed in the latest version 4.3.3 by rewriting parts of the necessary code. Tests have shown that the performance has been greatly increased and accuracy improved, but this causes values to change in some cases. We are happy that these changes are correct, but currently still evaluate them further. Therefore we ask users to test and evaluate Emoslib 4.3.3 carefully before using it operationally. There will be further news in this blog when the evaluation is complete.
All these packages use the same build system based on CMake - simplifying and harmonising the installation experience. If you encounter any issues please feel free to send us feedback to Software.Support@ecmwf.int.