The `TEMPO` repo contains 215MB binary table data

[guoqing-noaa]

Just my two cents, I noticed that src/core_atmosphere/physics/physics_noaa/TEMPO/tables/ contains about 215 MB of binary table data.

In general, tracking large binary files directly in a GitHub repository can be problematic. When these files are updated, older versions are no longer visible in the working tree but remain in the repository history. Over time, this can significantly increase the repository size and slow down operations like git clone.

One possible solution is to package these binary data into a tarball and provide it separately for users to download as needed.

[AndersJensen-NOAA]

@guoqing-noaa
I'm bringing @dustinswales into this conversation. I think the ultimate plan will be to store runtime data as artifacts that are available to download.

I would delete this issue in favor of #207

[dustinswales]

#218 Stores external MPAS physics data as release assets for use by the CI workflow.
The data in question here is internal to the NCAR:TEMPO submodule, not MPAS, so it's a bit different.

@AndersJensen-NOAA You could add the data as a release asset to NCAR:TEMPO and pull it into MPAS. I'm not sure what you need to do on the MPAS workflow side of things for this to work, since it currently assumes the data is in a source directory.
From the CI workflow perspective, we would just need to add another step in the data fetching script.