Australian published CMIP related datasets fall under both the CMIP5-era and CMIP6-era projects. In addition, NCI has committed to replicating key internationally published CMIP output locally, along with providing key observational and reanalysis datasets. For further information on the different climate datasets and available variables see the Datasets and Available Variables page.
This page provides details of the access options available to users to search and access the CMIP data available at NCI. Sections in this page are broken into the following topics:
Access Options
Please note: External users who do not have an NCI user account are directed to option 2 below, or alternatively, you may email help@nci.org.au if you are interested in attaining an NCI login.
Access to the CMIP and related data available is available via three key methods:
Direct Access on the NCI filesystem.
Users with an NCI login may obtain direct access to the data replicated locally on the NCI filesystem and available through both raijin and the VDI.
The ESGF data portal: https://esgf.nci.org.au/projects/esgf_nci/.
The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) data portal provides access to the CMIP datasets published across all the international data nodes. You may search for CMIP data and for external users, you may download data from the esgf site after creating a login account.
The Thredds catalog.
You may search for the data published on THREDDS via the Geonetwork data catalog. The NCI metadata catalogue geonetwork provides a means to search and view information on the datasets published at NCI.
Currently only Australian published data is available on the THREDDS catalog: http://dapds00.nci.org.au/thredds/catalog/rr3/catalog.html.
Detailed training on each of the access options may be found under the Training page.
Direct Data Access (NCI Users Only)
Primary access to the CMIP data, from both raijin and the VDI, is achieved via requesting to join the relevant project space and accessing the data from /g/data/<project> (see table below).
| Australian Published CMIP Data | Replicated CMIP Data | Replicated Observational and Reanalysis Data | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCI Project Code | rr3 = CMIP5-era TBC = CMIP6-era | ua6 = CMIP5-era "unofficial" al33 = CMIP5-era "official" - in progress oi10 = CMIP6-era | qv56 = input4MIPs, CREATE-IP, obs4MIPs and ana4MIPs subsets |
Please note: currently CMIP5 replica data is available through the unofficial download space under /g/data/ua6/DRSv2. CMIP5 is undergoing a re-download process with data being downloaded to the official replica space under /g/data/al33. The transition from the "unofficial" to "official" space (ua6 → al33) is expected to take place some time in the second half of 2018. Regular updates prior to any transition activity will be communicated to users via the website and email.
Request to Access a Data Collection
You may request to join a data collection through my.nci.org.au/mancini. Your request will then be sent to the data collection manager for approval. You must agree to the same Terms and Conditions that govern access to the data via the Earth Systems Grid Federation:
Data Organisation
CMIP6 Published and Official Replica Data
All CMIP6 data will fall under the standard data reference syntax (DRS) defined by the ESGF (for more information see: https://www.earthsystemcog.org/site_media/projects/wip/CMIP6_global_attributes_filenames_CVs_v6.2.6.pdf), sorting the data into the following directory format:
CMIP6/CMIP/<institution_id>/<source_id>/<experiment_id>/<member_id>/<table_id>/<variable>/<grid_label>/<version>
CMIP5 Australian Published and Official Replica Data
The CMIP5 published data (project code = rr3) and official replica data (project code = al33) can be found with the following directory structure:
/g/data/<project>/publications/CMIP5/output1/<institute>/<model>/<experiment>/<frequency>/<realm>/<table>/<ensemble>/<version><variable>
The above directory format conforms to the official DRS defined by the ESGF (see https://cmip.llnl.gov/cmip5/docs/cmip5_data_reference_syntax_v1-00_clean.pdf for more information.) Note some of the key difference in the facets between CMIP5 and CMIP6, in particular "model" in CMIP5 has become "source_id" and "ensemble" has become "member_id". Other facets have similar names, though in CMIP6 the convention often includes an "_id".
CMIP5 Unofficial Replica Data
For historical reasons the currently available "unofficial" replica data in ua6 is organised with the following structure:
/g/data/ua6/DRSv2/CMIP5/<model>/<experiment>/<frequency>/<realm>/<ensemble>/<variable>/latest
Note that this data is not the official replica and is planned to be progressively decommissioned over time.
Definitions for directory format terms:
- institute/institution_id: the institution that produced the model output (e.g. CSIRO-BOM, UNSW, etc.)
- model/source_id: also refereed as source_id in CMIP6, it is the CMIP model name identifier.
- experiment/experiment_id: the CMIP experiment identifier (e.g., historical, piControl, rcp45, etc.)
- frequency: frequency identifier (e.g., 3hr, day, mon, etc.)
- realm: modelling realm (e.g., atmos, land, ocean, etc.)
- ensemble/member_id: ensemble or member_id, provides information on initialisation and physics identifier (e.g., r1i1p1, r1i1p2, etc.)
- variable/variable_id: output variable (see full list here)
- version: available versions, and 'latest' with symbolic links to the latest available version, where a version isn't available the creation date is used instead.
- table/table_id: For example "Amon" is short for atmosphere monthly, "Omon" is ocean monthly, etc.