Computational Tools in Climate Science: Part 2 - Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalysis
NFDI4Earth
About This Course
Welcome to the "Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalysis" course. This is the second part of the "Computational Tools for Climate Science" course series! Today we dive into scientific exploration of the modern ocean and atmosphere systems using reanalysis datasets, building on yesterday’s climate system overview.
In the course of today's study, you will leverage computational tools and datasets such as Xarray, climate models (CESM2), and reanalysis dataset (ERA5), to explore the large-scale properties of the ocean and atmosphere, and their interactions. You will start by diagnosing anomalies of sea surface temperature (SST), their relation to El Niño and La Niña events, and their influence on global atmospheric circulation patterns and ocean dynamics. You will then examine how large-scale ocean currents are driven by both atmospheric flow (wind-driven circulation) and ocean density variations (thermohaline circulation). Finally, you will investigate how the heat stored within different layers of the ocean has changed over recent decades, and the consequent impacts on Earth's climate system.
Throughout Day 2, you will learn about large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulation, and develop familiarity with computational tools for the analysis and interpretation of complex climate data.
Level
Intro, Beginner, Intermediate
Requirements
Prerequisites include some introductory programming skills in Python, as well as core math and science concepts. We expect participants to be familiar with fundamental Python and data storage concepts (variables, lists, dictionaries, data formats) as well as some key Python libraries like NumPy, matplotlib, cartopy, datetime, pandas, and Xarray.
Subject Area
Geosciences
Learning Objectives
- Explain the difference between climate and weather based on their respective timescales.
- Describe the general oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and how these are related to each other.
- Analyze ocean and atmosphere reanalysis products on different spatial and temporal scales.
What You Will Learn
- Introduction to Oceans in Climate
- Calculating ENSO with Xarray
- A Lot of Weather Makes Climate - Exploring the ERA5 Reanalysis
- Atmospheric Circulation
- Oceanic Wind-Driven Circulation
- Thermohaline Circulation
- Ocean Heat Content
Resources
Computational Climate Science syllabus by Climatematch
Computational Computational Tools in Climate Science by Climatematch
Computational Tools for Climate Science Course by neuromatch