There are now two diagnostics packages available. The first, and older, package
provides diagnostics of the climatological monthly means. The second package
provides some diagnostics of the variability.

Diagnostics of Climatological Monthly Means

LAST UPDATE: 08/19/04

The AMWG diagnostics package first began life as the WGNE diagnostics package.
Sylvia Murphy created the first version of the diagnostics in 1999. I started work
on an extended version (now called the AMWG diagnostics) in the fall of 2000.
The diagnostics package is written completely in NCL (NCAR Command Language).

The AMWG diagnostics package produces over 600 postscript plots and tables in
a variety of formats from CCSM (CAM) monthly netcdf files. Climatological means for
DJF, JJA, and ANN are used. The diagnostics package can be used to compare two
CCSM (CAM) model simulations or for comparing a model simulation to the observational
and reanalysis data. Model output on gaussian or fixed grids can be used. The code
has been tested on gaussian T31, T42, T85 and T170 grids and on fixed lat/lon grids.

Included in the package are HTML files which provide the infrastructure for a
basic website for the display of all your plots and tables. The c-shell script
(see below) now has a switch for creating webpages automatically. When this
is used the end result of running the script is a tar file of all the plots in gif, jpg
or png format and the needed html files organized in the proper subdirectories.
The user can then untar this file in a directory of their choosing and create a link to it.

Examples of the webpages created by the diagnostics package

  • Model fields compared with observational data plots
  • Comparison of two different models plots

    Plot Types Included

  • Tables of global and regional means (set 1)
  • Implied meridional ocean heat and freshwater transport (set 2)
  • Line plots of zonal means (set 3)
  • Latitude vs pressure/height zonal mean contour plots (set 4)
  • Longitude vs latitude 2D-field contour plots (set 5)
  • Longitude vs latitude 2D-vector field contour plots (set 6)
  • Longitude vs latitude polar 2D-field contour plots (set 7)
  • Month vs latitude zonal mean contour plots (set 8)
  • Longitude vs latitude DJF-JJA contour plots (set 9)
  • Annual cycle line plots of global means (set 10)
  • Miscellaneous plot types (set 11)
  • Vertical profiles at 56 raobs stations around the globe (set 12)
  • ISCCP cloud types from the ISCCP cloud simulator (set 13)
  • Plots of statisitcal significance for sets 5 and 7
  • Plots with paleoclimate coastlines using the orography field

    Three possible color schemes for the contour plots

  • Default amwg colors color bar
  • Blue and red colors color bar
  • Blue, yellow and red colors color bar

    Obs/Reanalysis Comparison Datasets

  • NCEP reanalysis 1979-1998 (16 variables)
  • ECMWF reanalysis 1979-1993 (13 variables)
  • RAOBS vertical profiles (T,Q,H)
  • GPCP precip rate 1979-2002
  • CMAP (Xie-Arkin) precip rate 1979-1998
  • CMAP PREC/L land surface precip rate 1948-2001
  • NVAP water vapor, cloud liquid water 1988-1999
  • SSM/I (Wentz) precip rate, water vapor, cloud liquid water 1987-2000
  • MODIS precipitable water, cloud liquid water
  • SMMR & SSM/I sea ice concentration 1979-1999
  • TRMM merged rain rate (3B-43) 1998-2003
  • ERS 1/2 scatterometer surface stress 1992-2000
  • ERBE fluxes, cloud forcings 1985-1989
  • CERES (5 variables) 2000-2002
  • IPCC/CRU surface air temperature 1961-1990
  • HadISST sea surface temperature and sea ice concentration 1982-2001
  • LEGATES surface temperature, precip rate 1920-1980
  • WILLMOTT land surface temperature and precipitation 1950-1999
  • ISCCP D1, D2 cloud cover (high,low,mid,total) 1983-2001
  • ISCCP FD surface fluxes 1983-2000
  • WARREN surface OBS cloud cover (low,total)

    Users with NCAR Accounts

    Users with accounts on DAVE and dataproc can use the diagnostics by copying
    the top-level c-shell script diag040819.csh from /ccsm/atm/DIAG/code/.
    Users with accounts on the CGD Suns, and local Linux systems that mount
    /fs/cgd/data0 can use the diagnostics by simply downloading the top level
    c-shell script diag040819.csh or by copying it from /fs/cgd/data0/stevens/DIAG/code/.
    Read the instructions in the file and make any needed changes. Example of the
    user modify section of diag040819.csh. Once you have modified the file,
    make it executable and then run it. IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

    Other Users Get the Code and Datasets FREE

    Other users of the diagnostics must have NCL, and the netcdf operators
    (NCO) already installed on their computer system. The complete package
    of NCL and HTML code is available as a gzipped tar file (~630KB).
    You will also need the utility "convert" to convert the postscript plots to
    an image format suitable for the webpages (png,gif,jpg). Convert is part of
    the ImageMagick package.

    Download the observational datasets

    You can download the observational datasets used to compare
    with model data via our anonymous ftp site. The file is about 116 MB.

    >ftp ftp.cgd.ucar.edu
    >login using "anonymous" and your email address
    >cd pub/stevens
    >binary
    >get diag.obs_data.tar.gz

    To install the code gunzip/untar the diag.code.tar.gz file in a diagnostics directory
    you have created (example /usr/local/DIAG/). This will create the subdirectories
    /code and /html. In the same directory gunzip/untar the diag.obs_data.tar.gz file, this
    will create the /obs_data subdirectory. In the /code subdirectory you will find the
    diag040819.csh file. Read the instructions in the file and make any needed changes.

    Please let me know if you download and install the package so I can keep
    you informed about future updates.

    Mark Stevens (stevens@ucar.edu)
    Climate and Global Dynamics Division
    National Center for Atmospheric Research