Describe the Problem

This issue was raised by @CPKalb and @j-opatz while working with the model_applications/s2s_soil_moisture/GridStat_fcstSFSGSL_obsERA5Land_SoilMoisture METplus Use Case. This use case configures and runs Grid-Stat and Series-Analysis in almost identical ways but those two tools behave differently when parsing climatology data. The following inputs are used:

• Forecast data is supplied through Python embedding (e.g. file_type = PYTHON_NUMPY).
• Observation data is CF-Compliant NetCDF (e.g. file_type = NETCDF_NCCF).
• Climatology data is MET NetCDF (e.g. file_type = NETCDF_MET).

Grid-Stat runs and parses the climatology data without problem. However, Series-Analysis requires SERIES_ANALYSIS_FCST_CLIMO_MEAN_VAR1_OPTIONS = file_type = NETCDF_MET; to be set in order for it to be run. Otherwise, it attempts to read the NetCDF files using the Python embedding library code.

Expected Behavior

The behavior of Grid-Stat and Series-Analysis reading climo data should be as consistent as possible.

Here is an explanation for this behavior:

• MET#2924 enhanced MET version 12.0.0 to support reading separate forecast and observation climatology inputs.
• For this, the parsing of the climo_mean and climo_stdev dictionaries was moved from the top-level of config file context, to being parsed separately from the fcst and obs dictionaries.
• Python embedding works slightly differently in Grid-Stat and Series-Analysis.
• For Series-Analysis, fcst.file_type = PYTHON_NUMPY; is set to enable Python embedding.
• For Grid-Stat, fcst.file_type is NOT set.
• When parsing MET config options, the settings of the parent (e.g. fcst or obs) are inherited by its children (e.g. climo_mean and climo_stdev).
• So fcst.file_type = PYTHON_NUMPY is parsed and applied to the fcst.climo_mean and fcst.climo_stdev dictionaries.

The fix is to explicitly disable searching the "parent" when parsing the climatology file_type config setting.

To Reproduce

Describe the steps to reproduce the behavior:
On seneca, run /d1/projects/METplus/discussions/kalb_20250612/METplus/run_sa.sh.
The run_sa_v12.0.2.log file illustrates the runtime errors.

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