SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project

Tools

Information on Reanalyses

  • reanalyses.org: reanalysis information and intercomparison website prepared and maintained by the reanalysis centers.

Tools for Reanalysis Intercomparison

  • List of tools at reanalyses.org: List of web-based tools for comparing atmospheric reanalysis datasets.
  • WRIT: Web-based Reanalyses Intercomparison Tools (WRIT), with maps, timeseries, trajectories, etc.
  • CREATE IP: Collaborative REAnalysis Technical Environment (CREATE) is a NASA project to collect all available global reanalysis data, providing analytic capabilities, visualization analysis capabilities, etc. (See also Potter et al. (BAMS, 2018).)
  • Obs4MIPs: a limited collection of well-established and documented datasets that have been organized according to the CMIP model output requirements and made available on the ESG. See also Waliser et al. (2020) and WCRP Obs4MIPs website.
  • MERRA-2 weather and chemical maps: weather maps and chemical maps using MERRA-2 data (e.g., 5-day movies)
  • JRA-55 atlas: a complilation of climate maps produced with JRA-55 dataset

Tools for Data Retrieval

  • NCAR CISL Research Data Archive: includes most reanalyses except for MERRA. After submitting a data request at the site, you will receive an email (generally within 24 hours) describing how to retrieve the data.

Tools for Data Conversion and Analysis

  • NCAR Command Language (NCL): ncl_convert2nc can convert various file types (including GRIB, GRIB2, and HDF) into netCDF. The options "-nc4c -c l" will yield a netCDF4 file; the size of a netCDF4 file is much smaller than the size of a standard netCDF3 file, but a higher version of the netCDF libraries is required to handle netCDF4 (see the netCDF FAQ for further details).
  • netCDF Operators (NCO): tools for manipulating netCDF-accessible data files, including HDF4 and HDF5
  • Climate Data Operators: includes more than 600 operators for manipulating and analyzing data in the GRIB and netCDF formats
  • Panoply: Java-based interface for visualizing data in netCDF, HDF, and GRIB formats

More about Data Assimilation and Reanalysis System

  • NCAR's DART Data Assimilation Research Testbed: A community software for exploring a variety of data assimiliation methods and observations with different numerical models, designed to facilitate the combination of assimilation algorithms, models, and observations to allow increased understanding of all three.
  • MetEd's training course on Data Assimilation: Understanding Assimilation Systems: How Models Create Their Initial Conditions - version 2 (2-3 hour online training course)
  • ECMWF's Education material: This page includes materials for the Numerical Weather Prediction Training Course and the Computer User Training Course.
  • ECMWF's OpenIFS: The OpenIFS provides an easy-to-use version of the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System.