10mm clim NN% quantile
2004-10-27, Version 0.4.1
This document describes the organization of the data archive and the conventions used to store the data in the NetCDF files.
Links:
<data-type>/<region>/
| values | |
<data-type> |
data or indices |
<region> |
STARDEX region (alps, europe, germany, greece, iberia, italy, uk) |
All directory names should consist of lowercase letters only.
A generic filename has the following form:
<variable>.<region>.<type>.<institution>.<source>[.<exp>].nc
| component | description |
<variable> |
variable name |
<region> |
region and location of the stations |
<type> |
type of data: station (st), gridded (gp), region (reg), time series (ts) |
<institution> |
Specifies who produced the data. |
<source> |
The method of production of the data (e.g. downscaling method). |
<exp> |
Description of the experiment (e.g. driving GCM, scenario). |
The file names should consist of lowercase letters only. Consult appendix
A for further details and some example file names.
In this section we define the metadata, the coordinate systems, and the variables for the different types of data to be stored. The types of data include: station observations, upscaled observations, downscaled data, model data on the one hand and preciptation, minimum and maximum temperature and the STARDEX indices on the other hand.
The metadata should contain all relevant information about the dataset.
| name | contents | mandatory |
| Conventions | CF-1.0 | x |
| title | A short description of what is in the dataset. | x |
| source | The method of production of the data (e.g. downscaling method). | x |
| experiment | Description of the experiment: Driving GCM, which scenario. | |
| institution | Specifies where the data was produced. | x |
| comment | Additional information about the data or methods used to produce it. | |
| history | Provides an audit trail for modifications to the original data. |
The most important metadata related to downscaling are source and
experiment. source should contain a concise description
of the downscaling method, whereas experiment specifies the
data source used for the predictors.
Consult appendix B for further details.
The coordinate system should provide an accurate description of the location of the data in space and time. Three different coordinate systems are indroduced: one for station data, one for gridded data on a regular lat/lon grid, and one for gridded data on a rotated grid. The table below lists the variables required to describe this coordinate systems.
| type of data | coordinate variables | auxillary coordinate variables | grid mapping variable |
| station data | station, time | lon, lat, hgt, station_id, station_name | - |
| lat/lon grid | lon, lat, hgt, time | - | - |
| rotated grid | rlon, rlat, hgt, time | lon2d, lat2d | rotated_pole |
For ensembles an additional dimensions can be added to the above
coordinate systems, e.g.
| type of data | coordinate variables | auxillary coordinate variables | grid mapping variable |
| station data | station, time, member | lon, lat, hgt, station_id, station_name | - |
Here we define the data variable names and their standard attributes. See appendix C for a complete variable list, including all the STARDEX indices.
| variable | long_name | units |
| pre | precipitation | mm d-1 |
| tmin | minimum temperature | degC |
| tmax | maximum temperature | degC |
The long_name should be, despite its name, a short name
for the variable which can be used for labeling plots.
| filename | description |
| pre.al-fic.st.eth.obs.nc | FIC observations at the 10 common alpine stations |
| pre.al-fic.st.eth.dloci.ha3p-a2a.nc | downscaled FIC OBS from HADAM3P, Scenario A2a |
| pre.al-ch.st.eth.obs.nc | Swiss precipitation stations (high-resolution dataset) |
| pre.al-alra.gp.eth.obs.nc | Alpine Reanalysis Observations |
| pre.al-fic.gp.eth.alra-obs.nc | Observed gridpoint precipitation at the FIC stations |
| pre.al-nit.reg.adgb.obs.nc | Observed regional precipitation series for northern Italy |
| pre.gr.st.auth.uobs.nc | Upscaled observed greek station data |
| pre.gr-west.reg.auth.obs.nc | observed precipitation for the western Greek region |
| ct500.gr.ts.auth.ncep.nc | 500hPa circulation types for Greece from NCEP |
| ctthick.gr.ts.auth.ncep.nc | 1000-500hPa thickness circulation types for Greece from NCEP |
| pre.gr.st.auth.ct.ncep.nc | DS precip for Greek stations using NCEP circulation types |
| pind.al-fic.st.eth.obs.nc | precipitation indices for the 10 alpine FIC stations |
| pind.al-fic.st.eth.dloci.ha3p-a2a.nc | precipitation indices for downscaled station data |
| tind.al-fic.st.uibe.obs.nc | temperature indices for the 10 alpine FIC stations |
| abbreviation | description |
| pre | precipitation |
| tmin | minimum temperature |
| tmax | maximum temperature |
| pind | precipitation indices |
| tind | temperature indices |
| ct500 | 500hPa circulation types |
| ctthick | 1000-500hPa thickness circulation types |
| abbreviation | description |
| al | Alps |
| eu | Europe |
| ge | Germany |
| gr | Greece |
| ib | Iberia |
| it | Italy |
| uk | United Kingdom |
| al-fic | the common FIC stations for the Alps |
| al-ch | the high-resolution Swiss station dataset |
| al-alra | the Alpine Reanalysis |
| it-er | Emilia-Romagna |
| gr-west | western greek region |
| gr-east | eastern greek region |
| abbreviation | description |
| st | station data |
| gp | gridpoint data |
| reg | regionally averaged data |
| ts | time series |
| abbreviation | description |
| adgb | University of Bologna, Italy |
| arpa | Servizio Meteorologico Regionale, ARPA-SMR Emilia-Romagna, Italy |
| auth | University of Thessaloniki, Greece |
| cnrs | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France |
| dmi | Danish Meteorological Institute, Denmark |
| eth | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland |
| fic | Fundación para la Investigación del Clima, Spain |
| fts | Fachhochschule Stuttgart - Hochschule für Technik, Germany |
| kcl | King's College London, UK |
| unibe | University of Berne, Switzerland |
| ustutt | Institut für Wasserbau, Germany |
| uea | University of East Anglia, UK |
| abbreviation | description | institution |
| obs | observations | |
| ncep | NCEP reanalysis | |
| ha3p-cta | HADAM3P, control, member a (see also appendix A.7) | |
| ... | ||
| anal2 | two-step analogue method | FIC |
| ann | artificial neural network | AUTH |
| ann-gamma | ANN using hybrid Bernoulli/Gamma data misfit term | UEA |
| ann-gammamc | as ann-gamma but with Monte Carlo simulation | UEA |
| ann-irbf | individual radial basis fn ANN | KCL |
| ann-mlp | multi layer perceptron ANN | KCL |
| ann-rbf | radial basis fn ANN | KCL |
| ann-sse | ANN using sum-of-squares data misfit term | UEA |
| cca | canonical correlation analysis | ARPA, AUTH, UEA, UNIBE |
| cr | conditional resampling | KCL |
| cwg | conditional weather generator | DMI |
| dloci | dynamical local rescaling of GCM pre intensity | ETH |
| hyper4 | random sampling within 4-dim hyperspace | ADGB |
| loc | local rescaling of GCM precipitation | ETH |
| loci | local rescaling of GCM precipitation intensity | ETH |
| mar | multivariate auto-regressive model | USTUTT |
| mlr | multiple linear regression | ARPA, USTUTT |
| mlr-ct | MLR using circulation types | AUTH |
| ppci | potential precipitation circulation index | CNRS |
Note that the abbreviations for the downscaling methods do not include
the institution, as the institution is a standard part of the file name.
| abbreviation | description |
| ha3p-cta | HADAM3P, Control, Member a |
| ha3p-a2b | HADAM3P, Scenario A2, Member b |
| ech4-a2a | ECHAM4, Scenario A2, Member a |
| ncep | NCEP Reanalysis |
| ... |
| name | example |
| Conventions | CF-1.0 |
| title | STARDEX indices of precipitation at the 10 FIC stations in the Alps |
| source | FIC stations (OBS) |
| experiment | HADAM3P-A2a |
| institution | ETH |
| history | 2004-06-16: generated by STARDEX indices software version 3.3.1 |
| name | example |
| Conventions | CF-1.0 |
| title | Precipitation on the Alpine grid |
| source | loci-eth (DS) |
| experiment | HADAM3P-CTa |
| institution | ETH |
| title |
| Precipitation at the 10 FIC stations in the Alps |
| STARDEX indices of precipitation at the 10 FIC stations in the Alps |
| ... |
| source | description |
| FIC stations (OBS) | observations from the FIC stations |
| CHRM (MOD) | CHRM model data |
| NCEP (RA) | NCEP reanalysis data |
| dloci-eth (DS) | downscaled data, method dloci from ETH |
| cca-auth (DS) | downscaled data, using CCA developed by AUTH |
| ann-gamma-uea (DS) | downscaled data, using a neural network developed by UEA |
| ... |
Note that the source metadata should include the type of data
in parenthesis, i.e. observations (OBS), model data (MOD), reanalysis (RA),
or downscaled (DS).
Note also that for downscaled data/indices the source metadata consists of two parts, the downscaling method and the institution that developed the method. See appendix A.6 for the abbreviations to be used for the downscaling method and appendix A.5 for the abbreviations to be used for the institution.
| experiment | description |
| ERA15 | ERA15 reanalysis |
| NCEP | NCEP reanalyis |
| HADAM3P-CTa | HADAM3P, control, member a |
| HADAM3P-A2b | HADAM3P, scenario A2, member b |
| ECHAM4-CTa | ECHAM4, control, member a |
| ... |
| variable | long_name | units |
| pre | precipitation | mm d-1 |
| tmin | minimum temperature | degC |
| tmax | maximum temperature | degC |
| ct500 | 500hPa circulation types | |
| ... |
| variable | long_name | units |
| pav | mean | mm d-1 |
| pfre | frequency | 1 |
| pint | intensity | mm d-1 |
| pqNN | NN% quantile | mm d-1 |
| pfNN | fraction of total above NN% quantile | 1 |
| pn10mm | no events 10mm |
1 |
| pnlNN | no events clim NN% quantile |
1 |
| pfl90 | fraction of total above clim 90% quantile | 1 |
| pxNd | maximum N-day total | mm |
| ppww | mean wet-day persistence | 1 |
| ppdd | mean dry-day persistence | 1 |
| ppcr | correlation of spell lengths | 1 |
| pxcdd | max no consecutive dry days | day |
| pxcwd | max no consecutive wet days | day |
| pwsav | mean wet-spell length | day |
| pwsmed | median wet-spell length | day |
| pwssdv | stddev wet-spell length | day |
| pdsav | mean dry-spell length | day |
| pdsmed | median dry-spell length | day |
| pdssdv | stddev dry-spell length | day |
| variable | long_name | units | |
| tnav | mean Tmin | degC | |
| tnq10 | Tmin 10% quantile | degC | |
| tnq90 | Tmin 90% quantile | degC | |
| tnf10 | fraction of days Tmin  10% quantile |
1 | |
| tnf90 | fraction of days Tmin 90% quantile |
1 | |
| tnfd | number of frost days | 1 | |
| tncwd | cold wave duration | day | |
| tnfsl | frost season length | day | |
| txav | mean Tmax | degC | |
| txq10 | Tmax 10% quantile | degC | |
| txq90 | Tmax 90% quantile | degC | |
| txf10 | fraction of days Tmax 10% quantile |
1 | |
| txf90 | fraction of days Tmax 90% quantile |
1 | |
| txice | number of ice days | 1 | |
| txhwd | heat wave duration | day | |
| txhw90 | 90% quantile heat wave duration | day | |
| trav | mean diurnal temperature range | degC | |
| trq10 | temperature range 10% quantile | degC | |
| trq90 | temperature range 90% quantile | degC | |
| tiaetr | intra-annual extreme temperature range | degC | |
| tgdd | growing degree days | degC day | |
| tgsl | growing season length | day |
