[Go-essp-tech] cmip5

Mon Sep 12 06:23:54 MDT 2011

  Jonathan,

we also felt the need to have a program to download files from the CMIP5 
archive in an easy way, for a list of variables and experiments. At 
IPSL, we have developed a tool to help to do it. Its a first version 
that will be progressively improved (in particular the "user guide"). 
The program will evolve together with the cmip5 archive backend 
functionalities.

The user defines one or many templates. Each of them has a list of 
variables, frequencies and experiments. The user also define a list of 
models. Using these templates, the program explore the ESG grid and 
dowload all the corresponding files that are available (and only for the 
first ensemble member in the current version). The program may be run 
regularly to download the possible new files. Typically each template is 
associated with an analysis (cfmip template, downscaling template and so 
on). Create as many TemplateName.txt as you want in the user_selections 
folder (following the user_selections/default.txt (trivial) syntax) and 
you are done.

Here is the procedure to install the CMIP5 data download program. Except 
two dependencies (sqlite) it's a non root install:
http://dods.ipsl.jussieu.fr/jripsl/synchro_data/README

The program have the following features:
* support for myproxy-logon and myproxyclient
* simple data selection with model,experiment,realm and variable
* multi threaded downloads (8 tasks by default)
* manage datasets version following new drs
* incremental process (download only what's new)
* download history stored in a db

It has been tested with the following models: HadGEM2-ES, HadGEM2-A, 
CanESM2, CNRM-CM5, NorESM1-M, CanCM4, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0. IPSL-CM5A-LR will 
be added shortly ... :-)

Fill free to use it and to ask us if you have any questions, 
difficulties or suggestions to improve the program.

Enjoy your analysis.

Cheers,
Sébastien

On 12/09/2011 13:12, Williams, Dean N. wrote:
> Dear Jonathan and Stephen,
>
> 	We are also working on other solutions to help alleviate the problems
> mentioned below, such as replicating the most of the archive at various
> locations around the world. As Steven mentioned, we are aware of this
> shortcomings and others and are working "quickly" to address them.
>
> Thanks and best regards,
> 	Dean
>
> On 9/12/11 4:04 AM, "stephen.pascoe at stfc.ac.uk"
> <stephen.pascoe at stfc.ac.uk>  wrote:
>
>> Dear Jonathan,
>>
>> Thanks for taking the time to describe your concerns about the usability
>> of the CMIP5 archive system.  I am CC'ing this to go-essp-tech at ucar.edu
>> as I think your feedback is particularly welcome and insightful and
>> deserves to be seen and discussed widely.
>>
>> We are aware of many of the shortcomings you identify; improvements in
>> software and documentation are in progress that I hope will improve your
>> experience.  However, our progress has been slower than we'd hoped and we
>> are now up against significant CMIP5 usage which will inevitably impede
>> rolling-out improvements.  We would have hoped to have the system more
>> usable by now but we are pushing hard to improve the system as quickly as
>> possible.
>>
>> You identify several user interface and performance issues with the ESG
>> Gateway search system.  Our colleagues at NCAR have been developing a new
>> version of the Gateway with an improved search backend that I believe
>> solves many of your concerns.  I've seen a test deployment at NCAR and it
>> is a significant improvement.  We at BADC will be deploying it for
>> testing in the next couple of days in the hope that it can be rolled-out
>> quickly for end-users.
>>
>> Another point in your feedback is scriptability of downloads and checking
>> what is available.  We had hoped that the wget script generation feature
>> of the gateway would produce wget scripts that could be edited to
>> download different sorts of data by leveraging the Data Reference Syntax
>> [1].  Unfortunately, although some download URLs contain DRS information
>> that would help deducing alternative downloads, this isn't practical at
>> present.  We are working to improve the DRS consistency of the archive
>> that we hope will improve download scriptability.
>>
>> The other mechanism you could use to programmatically download data and
>> discover new data is reading the THREDDS catalogs.  Every centre serving
>> CMIP5 data is running a THREDDS Data Server [2] which lists all download
>> URLs in a network of THREDDS XML catalogs.  This is intended as an
>> internal interface so isn't well documented.  However, I think it is no
>> secret that some users are doing this already.  You can find the THREDDS
>> source catalog of every dataset in the "History" tab of the Gateway's
>> dataset page or they can be deduced from download URLs and a little
>> knowledge of TDS.
>>
>> I should add that downloading data directly from a TDS will only work if
>> it is configured to use "tokenless" security.  This is the case with only
>> some datanodes at present but should be fixed in the near term.
>>
>> In the medium-term ESGF are planning documented service APIs that would
>> allow users to query the system programmatically and there is a new P2P
>> architecture in the works with more focus on scalability [3]
>>
>> Regards,
>> Stephen Pascoe.
>>
>> [1] CMIP5 Data Reference Syntax:
>> http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/docs/cmip5_data_reference_syntax.pdf
>> [2] THREDDS Data Server: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/
>> [3] ESGF P2P Architecture: http://esgf.org/wiki/ESGF_Index
>>
>> ---
>> Stephen Pascoe  +44 (0)1235 445980
>> Centre of Environmental Data Archival
>> STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Oxford, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jonathan Gregory [mailto:j.m.gregory at reading.ac.uk]
>> Sent: 12 September 2011 11:12
>> To: esg-support at earthsystemgrid.org
>> Subject: cmip5
>>
>> Dear ESG
>>
>> In preparation for working on the 1st draft of the AR5, I have begun to
>> try to
>> download CMIP5 data. I have to say I am discouraged by the experience.
>> Using
>> this web interface is slow and inconvenient, and I fear it will be an
>> obstacle
>> to the work required to be done. The biggest limitation, I would say, is
>> that
>> there is *only* a web interface. For CMIP3, I used ftp to download the
>> data,
>> having written my own scripts. That minimised the manual effort required,
>> and
>> most importantly I could use my script to fetch data I didn't already
>> have,
>> which it could easily identify. With a web interface, working out what I
>> don't
>> already have will only be possible by manual comparison, which will take
>> a lot
>> of time. Is the http protocol that the web interface uses something that
>> could
>> be employed in a script? If so, could you document it? Even if the
>> protocol is
>> tricky, I would still much rather write a script than use a web
>> interface, as
>> in the end it will be more efficient.
>>
>> However, the web interface could be improved in various ways, I think,
>> which
>> would make it more efficient. As it stands, I find the following
>> inconvenient:
>>
>> * The PCMDI gateway is sometimes slow. This morning (UK time) it is
>> terribly
>> slow - unusable, in fact.
>>
>> * It always searches when you change any of the criteria, so it searches
>> all
>> of CMIP5 when you select the "Project", for instance. This wastes time.
>>
>> * You have to select "all" in order to see the whole list again and make a
>> new selection, again wasting time with unnecessary searching.
>>
>> * There is no way to select more than one thing at a time e.g. more than
>> one
>> experiment or more than one quantity.
>>
>> * All the datasets have to be ticked individually to proceed to download,
>> which is tedious.
>>
>> * If there is more than one page, you can tick only one page at a time,
>> so you
>> have to start all over again to do the next page, by repeating the whole
>> search laboriously.
>>
>> * I can't (yet) get MRI or MIROC data, as it requires some further
>> authorisation that I have applied for. In fact I applied several days ago,
>> and I have not yet been authorised. How can I chase this up?
>>
>> * The search facility at the top seems flaky. The "loading, please wait"
>> never
>> goes away and it crashes with an http error sometimes.
>>
>> * Although I would have thought that many users said that CMIP3 would
>> have been
>> much more convenient if it had been possible to download annual data
>> rather
>> than monthly - I certainly made this comment - that facility has not been
>> provided in the CMIP5 interface.
>>
>> I am sure many people would be grateful if you could make some
>> improvements.
>> (And I expect I am not the first to make these suggestions!)
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Jonathan Gregory
>> -- 
>> Scanned by iCritical.
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-- 
Sébastien Denvil
IPSL, Pôle de modélisation du climat
UPMC, Case 101, 4 place Jussieu,
75252 Paris Cedex 5

Tour 45-55 2ème étage Bureau 209
Tel: 33 1 44 27 21 10
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