Identification

Title

Statistical Analysis of Compressed Climate Data

Abstract

[Note: this Technical Note was updated on 2020-08-17 per the authors' request to correct an error. See the description of the change on page two of the document's front matter.] The data storage burden resulting from large climate model experiments only continues to grow. Lossy data compression methods are required to alleviate this burden, but lossy methods introduce the possibility that key climate variable fields could be altered to the point of affecting scientific conclusions. It is therefore important to develop a detailed understanding of how compressed climate model output differs from the original for different compression algorithms and compression rates. In this work, we evaluate the effects of two leading compression algorithms, sz and zfp, on daily average and monthly maximum temperature data, and daily average precipitation rate data, from a historical run of CESM1 CAM5.2. While both algorithms show promising fidelity with the original model output, detectable artifacts are introduced even at relatively low error tolerances. Examples for temperature data include biases in temperature gradient fields, temporal autocorrelation, and seasonal cycles; precipitation data show, for example, biases in the number of rainy days. We highlight the need for evaluation methods that are sensitive to errors at different spatiotemporal scales and specific to the particular climate variable of interest.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7p84fqd

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES > MODELS > COUPLED CLIMATE MODELS

EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES > DATA MANAGEMENT/DATA HANDLING > DATA COMPRESSION

EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES > DATA ANALYSIS AND VISUALIZATION > STATISTICAL APPLICATIONS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-09-17

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-08-23T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2023-08-18T18:06:41.092579

Metadata language

eng; USA