CMIP data located at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) covers a broad range of datasets, including CMIP5 and CMIP6 era replicated and published data as well as key observational and reanalysis datasets. For further information on the different climate datasets and available variables see the Datasets and Available Variables page. On this page we describe the methods in which the CMIP data hosted at NCI may be accessed. Sections in this page are broken into the following topics:
Image Source: https://www.earthsystemcog.org/projects/cmip/
Access Options
Please note: External users who do not have an NCI user account are directed to option 2 below. 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:
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 with both the HPC facilities of raijin and the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
- Users are encouraged to use CleF - a python module developed for ease of searching and accessing CMIP data at NCI.
The ESGF data portal.
The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) data portal provides access to CMIP datasets published by NCI and hosted across the international data nodes. Note, replica data is not currently published on NCI ESGF site. If you cannot use the data on raijin or the VDI, you may search for the CMIP data from the ESGF site. Note that a login account with an ESGF nodes is required to download data.
The Geonetwork catalog.
You may search for the CMIP data published at NCI via the Geonetwork metadata catalog, which also provides links to data services on the THREDDS Data Service.
Australian published CMIP5 data is available on geonetwork under: https://geonetwork.nci.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/f3525_9322_8600_7716.
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 (see below) and accessing the data from /g/data/<project code> (see table below).
| Australian Published CMIP Data | Replicated CMIP Data | Replicated Observational and Reanalysis Data | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCI Project Code | fs38 = CMIP6-era rr3 = CMIP5-era | oi10 = CMIP6-era al33 = CMIP5-era cb20 = CMIP3 | qv56 = input4MIPs |
Please note: CMIP5 replica data is available through the official download area, /g/data/al33, and access to the au6 "unofficial" replica data has been removed. For more details of the transition please refer to the CMIP5 Transition to al33 and rr3 page.
Request to Access a Data Collection
You may request to join a data collection through my.nci.org.au/mancini. Your request will be sent to the data collection manager for approval and you must agree to the same Terms and Conditions that govern CMIP access data access as stipulated by the Earth Systems Grid Federation:
CleF
The volume and complexity of CMIP makes manual searching for data on the filesystem a time consuming process. To efficiently find the CMIP data that you wish to access we recommend using the Climate Finder tool CleF developed by ARCCSS and CLEX. CleF is a python module designed for ease of searching and accessing data at NCI through a command line interface. Documentation on using CleF is available here and membership of any of the NCI CMIP projects oi10, al33, rr3 or ua6 is required for use (if you are a new member it may take up to 1 day for access to the NCI database used by CleF to be granted).
Data Organisation
To permit ease of use and interdisciplinary research, CMIP uses a standard naming convention for files, directories, metadata and URLs. These conventions are described in detail in the CMIP6 Controlled Vocabularies and CMIP5 Controlled Vocabulary
CMIP6 Published and Official Replica Data
Under the CMIP6 DRS, data may be found with the following directory format:
CMIP6/CMIP/<institution_id>/<source_id>/<experiment_id>/<member_id>/<table_id>/<variable>/<grid_label>/<version>
CMIP5 Australian Published Data
The CMIP5 published data can be found with the following directory structure:
/g/data/rr3/publications/CMIP5/output1/<institute>/<model>/<experiment>/<frequency>/<realm>/<table>/<ensemble>/<version>/<variable>
CMIP5 Official Replica Data
The CMIP5 official replica data can be found with the following directory structure:
/g/data/al33/replicas/CMIP5/combined/<institute>/<model>/<experiment>/<frequency>/<realm>/<table>/<ensemble>/<version>/<variable>
CMIP3 Official Replica Data
The CMIP3 official replica data can be found with the following directory structure:
/g/data/cb20/replicas/cmip3/<institute>/<model>/<experiment>/<frequency>/<realm>/<ensemble>/<variable>
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".
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.
Guidance for Data Users
The following guidance material for CMIP6 data users is provided through PCMDI. It includes information on experiment design, model output, terms of use and citation, model documentation, error reporting, registering publications which use CMIP6 data, and CMIP6 governance.