General information

SPS stands for Surface Prediction System. It was developed by ECCC. It executes only the surface routines from GEM, driving it with the following external driving data:

• Surface pressure (P0)
• Surface temperature (TT) (at 2 m but preferably on the lowest predictive model level)
• Surface humidity (specific (HU) or relative (HR))  (at 2 m but preferably on the lowest predictive model level)
  
• Surface u- and v-winds (UU and VV) (at 10 m but preferably on the lowest predictive model level)
• Surface downward shortwave radiation (N4)
• Surface downward longwave radiation (AD)
  

Like GEM it also need the following lower boundary conditions:

• Sea surface temperature in Kelvin (TM)
• Sea ice fraction (LG)

SPS 6.1.1 uses the same physics version as GEM 5.1.1.

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