Diagnostics of Climatological Monthly Means

Updated: July 7, 2008

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
(fv 2x2.5, 1.9x2.5, 0.9x1.25, 0.47x0.625)

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) 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)
  • Equatorial (5N-5S) longiitude vs pressure/height zonal mean contour plots (set 4a) *NEW*
  • 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
  • Taylor diagram plotys and error metrics (set 14) *NEW*

    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

  • ERA40 reanalysis 1980-2001 *NEW*
  • JRA25 reanalysis 1979-2004 *NEW*
  • 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
  • CERES2 (5 variables) 2000-2005 *NEW*
  • 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
  • CLOUDSAT cloud cover (2007-2008) *NEW*
  • Large-Yeager Surface Flux Climatology (1984-2004) *NEW*
  • Woods Hole OAFLUX (1958-2006) *NEW*
  • 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

    CGD account holders

    Users with accounts on CGD sun and linux machines (mineral, hurricane, salina, bangkok, goldhill etc)
    can run the diagnostics by downloading the top level
    c-shell script diag080707.csh or by copying it from /fs/cgd/home0/rneale/DIAG/
    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. .
    Set ncl/ncar graphics options appropriate to the system in your .tcshrc/.cshrc etc.

    setenv NCARG_ROOT /usr/local/ncl
    setenv PATH $NCARG_ROOT/bin:$PATH

    Be sure to set 'setenv DIAG_HOME /fs/cgd/home0/rneale/DIAG/' in diag080707.csh.

    Super-Computer account holders

    Users with accounts on the data analysis cluster nodes (gale, breeze, gust, or hail)
    can run the diagnostics by downloading the top level
    c-shell script diag080707.csh or by copying it from /fis/cgd/home/rneale/DIAG/
    Set ncl/ncar graphics options appropriate to the system in your .tcshrc/.cshrc etc.

    setenv NCARG_ROOT /fs/local/apps/ncl-5.0.0
    setenv PATH $NCARG_ROOT/bin:$PATH

    Be sure to set 'setenv DIAG_HOME /fis/cgd/home/rneale/DIAG/' in diag080707.csh.

    Sites External to NCAR

    NERSC (Berkeley)

    For runs carried out on franklin the AMWG diagnostics are available on the data analysis
    cluster DaVinci. Users with accounts on DaVinci can run the diagnostics by downloading the top level
    c-shell script diag080707.csh or by copying it from /usr/common/homes/r/rneale/DIAG
    Set ncl/ncar graphics options appropriate to the system in your .tcshrc/.cshrc etc.

    module load ncl
    module load nco

    Be sure to set 'setenv DIAG_HOME /usr/common/homes/r/rneale/' in diag080707.csh.

    NCSS (Oak Ridge)

    For runs carried out on jaguar or phoenix the AMWG diagnostics are available on the data analysis cluster lens.
    Users with accounts on lens can run the diagnostics by downloading the top level
    c-shell script diag080707.csh or by copying it from /ccs/home/rneale/DIAG/
    Set ncl/ncar graphics options appropriate to the system in your .tcshrc/.cshrc etc.

    module load ncl
    module load nco

    Be sure to set 'setenv DIAG_HOME /ccs/home/rneale/DIAG/' in diag080707.csh.

    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 (~1 Mb).
    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 and CAM3.5/CCSM3.5 datasets

    You can download the observational and comparison model datasets used to compare
    with model data via our anonymous ftp site.

    >ftp ftp.cgd.ucar.edu
    >login using "anonymous" as username and your email address as password
    >cd archive/amwg_diag
    >binary
    >get diag.obs_data.tar.gz
    >get diag.cam35_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, /images, /rgb and /html. In the same directory gunzip/untar the diag.obs_data.tar.gz (~0.4 Gb) file, this
    will create the /obs_data subdirectory and the diag.cam35_data.tar.gz (~1.3 Gb) file, this
    will create the /cam35_data subdirectory. In the /code subdirectory you will find the
    diag080707.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.

    Possible problems/Comments

    For processing higher resolution model output (e.g. 0.5 degree) the memory allocated by NCL for the lat-lon
    plots may be insufficient. Try adding the following to the ncl .hluresfile file

    *wsMaximumSize : 50000000

    This value may need to be increased further for higher resolution model data

    Rich Neale (rneale(*a*t*)ucar.edu)
    Climate and Global Dynamics Division
    National Center for Atmospheric Research