Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

Last edited by gilbert.p.compo on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 15:08

A set of web-based reanalysis intercomparison tools (WRIT) is available from the NOAA ESRL Physical Sciences Division and University of Colorado CIRES.

writ mapsWRIT time-series

The "WRIT" Maps tool allows users to examine 20CR, ERA-Interim, MERRA, NCEP R1, NCEP R2, and NCEP CFSR data. Pressure level data are available as well as 5 single level variables including sea level pressure, 2 m air temperature, 10 m winds, and precipitation. Maps and pressure-level by longitude and pressure-level by latitude can be generated for monthly means, anomalies, and climatologies. Two observational datasets have been made available that can be compared to 2m air temperature and precipitation. These quantities can be differenced between datasets.

Future enhancements include different time scales.

The "WRIT" Timeseries and correlation tool is also available from WRIT. It allows users to examine 20CR, ERA-Interim, MERRA, NCEP R1, and NCEP R2

 

data.

The "WRIT" Trajectory Tool is a new tool available from WRIT. It allows users to plot forward and backward trajectories from different reanalyses (currently NCEP R1, NCEP R2, and 20CR with more planned).

 

Other analysis products are planned.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome. Please give comments/issues/suggestions in the Post a comment or question below.


Acknowledgments

The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project (20CR) used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which are supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 and Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, respectively. Support is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (DOE INCITE) program, and Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Program Office. Data are freely available from NOAA, NCAR, the IRI, KNMI, and DOE NERSC.

NASA's Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was developed by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) and produced through NASA's Modeling, Analysis and Prediction (MAP) program, and is freely available from the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data Information Services center (DISC).

NCEP's Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) was developed by the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) and was partially funded through the NOAA Climate Program Office. It is available free to the public from both NCDC and NCAR.

The ERA-Interim reanalysis is being produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in Reading, UK. ERA-Interim data with near-real time updates are freely available from the ECMWF data server and from the CISL Data Archive at NCAR. 

Comments (8)

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools

Great job! I tried a few and it seems to work well. Very nice work, thanks.

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools

Nice work

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools

Thanks for this great tool

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

What we could add or change to page: Ability to composite on a set of dates. Allow users to use own dates More variables (what?) Standardized anomalies. We can consider these though they may require too much time to compute. What we hope to improve. Speed! We know where some of the slowness is and hope to find ways around it. Labeling... Please list other suggestions.

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

It is a "cool" tool for my students analysing anomalies and compositions, drawing timeseries and trajectories. And all is available without any knowledge in programming, data format or additional data visualisation software. Thanks. Gintas

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

This is a wonderfully useful and easy to use tool - congratulations! I just wish I had tried using this sooner.

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

When a user selects MERRA pressure level data for time series as one or both of the variables, we now print "Note: MERRA does not interpolate pressure level variables below the surface. Your MERRA timeseries may average "missing" grids. Please check the MERRA maps of the variable to see where this may occur." MERRA maps points to the mapping WRIT page. Is this sufficient? How should we handle pressure level data below the surface? A user could pick a box that has some values below the surface and some not. We could alternatively not allow any comparisons below the surface. We may be able to report average percent of grids in each month available or something like that. Any other ideas?

Re: Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tools (WRIT)

MERRA 3D atmospheric data were produced without extrapolation to pressure surfaces where the pressure level would be greater than the surface pressure (in other words, under ground). The impact that this has on averaging is discussed here:

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/merra/pressure_surface.php

A third party routine is available to extrapolate continuous pressure levels.

https://reanalyses.org/atmosphere/extrapolation-merra-reanalyses-obtain-...

This would be best applied to 3 or 6 hourly fields.

Mike Bosilovich (NASA/GMAO)

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