Simulation Files ¶

The QuickView family of tools has been developed using simulation files from the E3SM Atmosphere Model, EAM, and the land model ELM. A small collection of sample files can be found on Zenodo.

The horizontal dimension ¶

Starting from QuickView version 2 and QuickCompare version 1, the data reader used in the tool family has been generalized to handle all NetCDF variables on cubed-sphere meshes regardless of what name is used for the horizontal dimension (e.g., ncol and ncol_d in EAM files and lndgrid in ELM files).

Multi-dimensional variables ¶

Starting from QuickView version 2 and QuickCompare version 1, the tool family has been generalized to visualize any variable in a NetCDF file that has a horizontal dimension matching the connectivity file, regardless of how many additional dimensions the variables have.

Here are some examples of variable dimensions (array shapes) from EAM output files:

(ncol)
(time,lev,ncol)
(time,cosp_prs,cosp_tau,ncol)
(time,ncol,swband,lev)
(time,ncol,num_phys_constituents)
(time,ncol_d,lev)

And here are some examples of variable dimensions (array shapes) from ELM output files:

(levgrnd,lndgrid)
(levlak,lndgrid)
(time,lndgrid)
(time,levgrnd,lndgrid)
(time,natpft,lndgrid)

Global averages ¶

When an area variable with the correct horizontal dimension is present in the simulation file, this variable is used for calculating the area-weighted horizontal averages displayed in the viewport. If the area variable is not present, then an arithmetic average is calculated and displayed.

Missing values ¶

When a variable has an attribute named missing_value or _FillValue, the value is converted to NaN and ignored in the calculation of global averages and for the visualization.