Recognized conventions

Naming conventions are specified with the convention parameter. The currently implemented naming conventions are:

  • CMIP: Variable names and units as used in the CMIP6

data request. There is a web interface to the request. Data from any model that ha s been published as part of CMIP6, or processed with the CMOR3 tool, should follow this convention.

  • CESM: Variable names and units used in the default output of models developed at the

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), headquartered in Boulder, CO, USA. Recognized synonyms for this convention: CAM4, CESM, CESM2.

  • GFDL: Variable names and units used in the default output of models developed at the

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), Princeton, NJ, USA. Recognized synonyms for this convention: AM4, CM4, ESM4, SPEAR.

If you would like the package to support a naming convention that hasn’t currently been implemented, please make a request in the appropriate GitHub discussion thread.

Working with unimplemented conventions

The framework has a number of options for handling data that doesn’t follow one of the recognized naming conventions described above. All of them involve more manual effort on the part of the user.

  • The third-party CMOR tool exists to convert model output into the CMIP convention.

  • NCO, CDO and other utilities provide command-line functionality for renaming variables, unit conversion, editing metadata, etc.

  • As mentioned in the cli documentation, setting translate_data to false in the runtime configuration file turns off the variable translation functionality. The user is then responsible for ensuring that input model data has the variable names and units expected by each POD.

  • Finally, setting run_pp to false will disable all unit conversion and checking associated with model metadata. The user is then responsible for ensuring that input model data has the variable names and units expected by each POD.

If using any of the above methods, please carefully consult the documentation for what data is needed by each POD. Note that we do not require POD developers to use standard variable names or set of units, so different PODs may request data in mutually inconsistent conventions (e.g., precipitation as a rate vs. as a flux).