Introduction to Unified Model

Home / Study with us / Introduction to Unified Model
White clouds fill the sky above a hilly landscape

Study the Unified Model

Dates: 3-5 February 2026
Location: National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Fairbairn House, University of Leeds

The Met Office Unified Model is used for weather and climate prediction by forecasting centres worldwide. The Introduction to Unified Model course provides practical support for setting up and running experiments on this model, through a series of short lectures and hands-on workshops.

The key areas covered in the course are:

  1. The fundamentals of the UM modelling system;
  2. Running UM suites;
  3. Using UM data files;
  4. Using the Rose toolkit & Cylc 8 workflow management system;
  5. Tools for viewing, checking & converting UM data files;
  6. Troubleshooting common problems.
Apply to attend
MAKE ENQUIRY

How to apply

APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN

Subscribe to our training course mailing list to learn about upcoming courses.

Learning outcomes

We aim for students to:

  • Set up their environment in order to run the UM;
  • Run basic and more complex suites;
  • Work with Rose/Cylc tools, including using Rose for workflow discovery, the Rose configuration editor & Cylc for managing running workflows;
  • Make typical configuration changes such as the run length, input files, output diagnostics, and scientific settings;
  • Diagnose and overcome common errors;
  • Find output data and log files;
  • Analyse UM data files using common tools.

    • Prerequisites

    We expect course attendees to have the following background knowledge:

  • How to use basic Linux shell commands such as ls, cd, mv, rm and grep;
  • How to edit a text file using a tool such as emacs or vim;
  • The concept of version control tools, particularly subversion;
  • The very basics of HPC, such as cores, nodes and batch submission systems.

    • Teaching staff

    Introduction to Unified Model is led by experts from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science Computational Modelling Service.

    Course schedule

    The course will be run over three full days in a classroom.

    Cost

    Full academic rate £412
    Educational discounted rate (for students and postdoctoral researchers) £310

    Travel and accommodation

    Accommodation is not provided as part of the course fee and attendees should arrange their own accommodation.

    Leeds has a wide range of accommodation available including budget B&B accommodation, four-star hotels, self-catering campus accommodation, and serviced apartments. We do not endorse or recommend specific hotels.

    Attendees are responsible for arranging and paying for their own transport to and from the course.

    Terms and conditions

    Cancellations/ refunds

    No charge will be made where the cancellation is made more than six weeks before the date of the training course.

    In the event of cancellation made within six weeks immediately prior to the training course an invoice will be issued to the amount of a non-funded place on the course.

    In the event that a place can be filled by another student no fee will be charged.

    All cancellations must be sent in writing to training@ncas.ac.uk.

    Amendments and cancellations

    It may be necessary for us to change the content and timing of a course, the staff, the date or the venue.