diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index b90f543041788093f5226bbecf9cca576f8548a4..f937f88cc434152a71db67273c2df6a1795838b6 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 dist/
-*/.ipynb_checkpoints
+
+**/.ipynb_checkpoints
 
 tricco/__pycache__
diff --git a/benchmarks/.ipynb_checkpoints/benchmark_cubulation-checkpoint.ipynb b/benchmarks/.ipynb_checkpoints/benchmark_cubulation-checkpoint.ipynb
deleted file mode 100644
index 0506e40269bfd73a3475eea0235f6b8f64738758..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/benchmarks/.ipynb_checkpoints/benchmark_cubulation-checkpoint.ipynb
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,126 +0,0 @@
-{
- "cells": [
-  {
-   "cell_type": "markdown",
-   "metadata": {},
-   "source": [
-    "# Notebook for benchmarking runtime of cubulation\n",
-    "\n",
-    "Tests are performed on an exclusive compute node of the DKRZ supercomputer Mistral in Hamburg, Germany.\n",
-    "\n",
-    "A compute node has the following specs (https://www.dkrz.de/up/systems/mistral/configuration):\n",
-    " * 2x 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 (Haswell) @ 2.5GHz\n",
-    " * 24 cores (48 logical CPUs)\n",
-    " * 64 GB main memory\n",
-    " \n",
-    "As for the grids we consider limited-area ICON grids that cover a large part of the North Atlantic. They were for example used for the NAWDEX simulations described Senf, F., A. Voigt et al, 2020: Increasing Resolution and Resolving Convection Improve the Simulation of Cloud‐Radiative Effects Over the North Atlantic, JGR Atmospheres. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020JD032667."
-   ]
-  },
-  {
-   "cell_type": "markdown",
-   "metadata": {},
-   "source": [
-    "Load required packages. Note: adding cc3d to system path is needed because it is required by tricco."
-   ]
-  },
-  {
-   "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 1,
-   "metadata": {},
-   "outputs": [],
-   "source": [
-    "import timeit\n",
-    "import sys\n",
-    "sys.path.append('/pf/b/b380459/connected-components-3d/')\n",
-    "sys.path.append('/pf/b/b380459/BigDataClouds/tricco/')\n",
-    "import tricco"
-   ]
-  },
-  {
-   "cell_type": "markdown",
-   "metadata": {},
-   "source": [
-    "Define the start triangle and radius of outward search as a function of grid resolution."
-   ]
-  },
-  {
-   "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 2,
-   "metadata": {},
-   "outputs": [],
-   "source": [
-    "dict_start  = {'80000m': 5783, '40000m': 18538, '20000m': 69309, '10000m': 264792}\n",
-    "dict_radius = {'80000m': 102 , '40000m': 230  , '20000m': 460  , '10000m': 2000  }"
-   ]
-  },
-  {
-   "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": null,
-   "metadata": {},
-   "outputs": [
-    {
-     "name": "stdout",
-     "output_type": "stream",
-     "text": [
-      "Working on resolution of 80000m\n",
-      "Time to read the grid:\n",
-      "310 ms ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Time to compute cubulation:\n",
-      "11.7 s ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Working on resolution of 40000m\n",
-      "Time to read the grid:\n",
-      "163 ms ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Time to compute cubulation:\n",
-      "1min 13s ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Working on resolution of 20000m\n",
-      "Time to read the grid:\n",
-      "144 ms ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Time to compute cubulation:\n",
-      "11min 34s ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Working on resolution of 10000m\n",
-      "Time to read the grid:\n",
-      "312 ms ± 0 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 1 run, 1 loop each)\n",
-      "Time to compute cubulation:\n"
-     ]
-    }
-   ],
-   "source": [
-    "# path to grid files\n",
-    "gridpath = '/work/bb1018/b380459/NAWDEX/grids/'\n",
-    "\n",
-    "# model resolutions under investigation\n",
-    "for res in ['80000m', '40000m', '20000m', '10000m']:\n",
-    "    \n",
-    "    print('Working on resolution of', res)\n",
-    "        \n",
-    "    gridfile = 'icon-grid_nawdex_78w40e23n80n_R'+res+'.nc'\n",
-    "    print('Time to read the grid:')\n",
-    "    %timeit -r 1 -n 1 tricco.grid_functions.grid = tricco.prepare_grid(model='ICON',path=gridpath, file=gridfile)\n",
-    "    \n",
-    "    print('Time to compute cubulation:')\n",
-    "    %timeit -r 1 -n 1 tricco.compute_cubulation(start_triangle=dict_start[res], radius=dict_radius[res], print_progress=False)"
-   ]
-  }
- ],
- "metadata": {
-  "kernelspec": {
-   "display_name": "Nawdex-Hackathon",
-   "language": "python",
-   "name": "nawdex-hackathon"
-  },
-  "language_info": {
-   "codemirror_mode": {
-    "name": "ipython",
-    "version": 3
-   },
-   "file_extension": ".py",
-   "mimetype": "text/x-python",
-   "name": "python",
-   "nbconvert_exporter": "python",
-   "pygments_lexer": "ipython3",
-   "version": "3.8.10"
-  }
- },
- "nbformat": 4,
- "nbformat_minor": 4
-}