[Go-essp-tech] Searching on forcings in the ESG Gateway

[Schmidt, Gavin A. (GISS-6110)]

Hi Sylvia, a couple of thoughts. 

1) are the input variable names part of the controlled vocabulary? If not, there may be some confusion - though this might be mitigated if the search was over the full text and was case-insenstive etc.

2) The reason to search on the forcings is to a) establish whether any specific forcing was used in a specific experiment across the groups. Which 'historical' simulations used ozone depletion? Which RCPs had continuations of solar cycle variability?  and b) what experiments can be usefully compared to each other - ie different models' 'historicalMisc' runs with similar forcing sets, or same models' experiments that differ in some small detail in the forcings (i.e. identifying runs with and without indirect aerosol effects). 

3) Forcings can differ within the same experiment even with the same model ('historicalMisc' is the obvious case, but may also occur with other simulations - i.e. we have one set of model runs that include an irrigation component but are otherwise identical). GIven the current set up the only indication of this is through the metafor name of the simulation and the 'forcings' attribute in the netcdf file - neither of which are visible via ESG. This is the biggest issue. 

4) I'm not really sure how well your proposed solution would work in practice though. Perhaps you could work though the cases in points 2 + 3 and demonstrate that it would be clear?

5) Can we name the button 'Forcings' ? (and make the direct link to the 'forcings' attribute in the netcdf files.

Regards, 

gavin



On Jul 8, 2011, at 2:49 PM, Sylvia Murphy wrote:

> Hi Gavin,
> It was a pleasure meeting you at the CCSM workshop a few weeks ago and getting your feedback on the model metadata display within the ESG Gateway.  Cecelia and I have been thinking about your comment on being able to search on forcings and would like to bounce off the following with you to ensure we correctly understand your requirement.    To do so, I have attached two screen shots.   The first screen shot shows the current search interface and the "facets" on the left-hand side that allow the user to narrow a search.  The second screen shot shows the current inputs (initial conditions, boundary conditions etc) for a sample CMIP5 simulation.  
> 
> Would your requirement be met if we added a facet to the search (see figure 1) called Input or Input Condition (let us know if you have a preference) and then listed all of the variables names you see in screen shot 2 as the options to select from in the search itself?
> 
> Thanks again for your feedback.  It is invaluable to us.  
> 
> Cheers,
> Sylvia
> 
> <search.tiff>
> <inputs.tiff>
> ***********************************
> Sylvia Murphy
> NESII/CIRES/NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
> 325 Broadway, Boulder CO 80305
> Email: sylvia.murphy at noaa.gov
> Phone: 303-497-7753
> Fax: 303-497-7649
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

==========

Gavin Schmidt
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
Tel: 212 678 5627
Email: Gavin.A.Schmidt at nasa.gov
URL: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/gschmidt.html