change the default temporary folder when running in parallel

I would like to change the temporary folder where the workers store data in Unix. Right now the default folder is /tmp/ but I would like to use the $TMPDIR variable set by the torque scheduler.

I've read about modifying the CHECKPOINTBASE variable on mdce_def.sh, but I'm running matlab remotely and this will change it for all the users, besides I don't have write access to the mdce_def.sh file on the system.

Is there another way to do this?