Reducing Reanalyses Data Wrangling with CREATE-IP

The NASA Climate Model Data Service (CDS) and the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) are collaborating to provide a technical environment for the comparative study of the major reanalysis projects: ECMWF ERA-Interim and ERA-20C, NASA/GMAO MERRA and MERRA2, NOAA/NCEP CFSR, NOAA/ESRL 20CR and 20CRv2, JMA JRA25, and JRA55. This effort is called the Collaborative REAnalysis Technical Environment (CREATE).

The CREATE-Intercomparison Project (CREATE-IP) is a component of CREATE and is a project designation in the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Each CREATE-IP reanalysis dataset is reformatted similarly to the CMIP5 models archive. By repackaging the reanalysis data into a common structure and format, it becomes much easier to access, subset, and compare reanalyses side-by-side. In addition to traditional monthly average data, a selection of high frequency data is also provided to facilitate comparison on synoptic time scales. The available data is being expanded to include new reanalyses as they become available, e.g. NASA/GMAO MERRA2, ECMWF ERA-20C, and NOAA/ESRL 20CRv2c. Following that, gridded observations and gridded innovations (O-A and O-F) will be made available in mid-2016. All the CREATE-IP data will be available through CREATE-V (visualization), and, as it becomes available, analytics.

The result is a system that provides the ability for both reanalysis scientists and those scientists in need of reanalysis output to identify the data of interest, compare, compute, visualize, and research without the need for transferring large volumes of data, performing time consuming format conversions, and writing code for frequently run computations and visualizations. Current collaborations include the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) for an ozone reanalysis comparison study, the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) with support data, and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) for a calibration study using precipitable water.