re-sync release/EPIC1.0 to reflect the change from release/public-v1.0.0

[jkbk2004]

Describe the issue.

1. resolve code divergence issue between the two branches
2. identify and resolve the exact gap and potential issues for the future application of the code change
3. suggested approaches: re-sync up release/EPIC1.0 reverted to original (sometime Feb 5) version/commit to add in advanced code changes and features from release/public-v1.0.0

Describe the problem and why it matters.

1. The described re-sync approach is needed due to limited timeline and resource. This will allow a path forward to continuous code update and code release through ufs community.
2. Prepare a series of PRs to merge in approved code changes

Test output

1. Set up baseline experiment on hera
2. Test and validate experiment results for each PR

Will addressing this issue change the DA_IMS_test output? If not, what are the expected changes?

1. not directly applied for IMS DA test but the advancement of code base will improve the code management functionality to handle future IMS DA test and features

[jkbk2004]

@ClaraDraper-NOAA @barlage we need a review about this issue.

[ulmononian]

@rhaesung @jkbk2004 in support of this effort, please see my comments regarding testing the current land DA system (based on https://github.com/ulmononian/land-offline_workflow/tree/release/public-v1.0.0; minor modulefile changes compared to the EPIC version) with beta installations of the spack-stack unified environment on hera ufs-community/ufs-weather-model#1651 (comment) and orion ufs-community/ufs-weather-model#1651 (comment).

[yichengt90]

Thanks @ulmononian . I also conducted ctest for land DA system using beta spack-stack on both Hera & Orion. All tests passed.