Visualizing ICON model data

icon_1.ncl: This script, which was contributed by Hui Wan of MPI-M, creates a filled contour plot of the "divergence" variable from an ICON model data file.

The variables "clon" and "clat" on the file are used to indicate the center lat/lon locations of the triangles, so we can overlay this data on a map.

Because these arrays are all one-dimensional, internally NCL is using a triangular mesh algorithm to create the contours.

icon_2.ncl: This example is identical to the previous one, except additionally, each triangle is drawn, filled, and outlined using the triangle vertex information on the file ("clon_vertices" and "clat_vertices"). The gsn_polygon procedure is used to draw the triangles.

Note that this example is a bit of an overkill, because the contout plot is being drawn and then completely covered by the filled triangles. It is necessary to create and draw the contour plot so we get tickmarks and a labelbar. We also use the contour plot to retrieve what levels and colors to use for the filled triangles.

The next example shows how to create and draw the filled triangles using just a map plot.

icon_3.ncl: This example is identical to the previous one, except this time just a map plot is created for drawing the filled triangles on top.

Doing things this way requires us to set our own levels and colors that we want for the filled triangles. We also have to create our own labelbar using gsn_create_labelbar and gsn_add_annotation.

icon_4.ncl: The first frame is a simple filled contour plot over a map of divergence, again using 1D lat/lon arrays for the overlay.

The second frame draws filled triangles over a map, this time using gsn_add_polygon to attach the filled triangles. Note that it takes a long time to draw this second frame, because there are thousands of individual triangles being filled. Also, some triangles "wrap" around the globe, so these have to be fixed.

icon_5.ncl: This dataset is similar to that from the first three examples, except this time instead of triangles, you have hexagons. The code is very similar to that in example 3, except the vlon/vlat and vlon_vertices/vlat_vertices variables on the file are used to determine the centers and edges of the data.

icon_6.ncl: This example shows how to overlay contours from two high-resolution fields onto a coarse global field. These are contours of 750 hPa vorticity for the mountain-induced Rossby wave train test.

The overlay procedure is used to overlay the two high-resolution fields onto the global field. cnFillDrawOrder and cnLineDrawOrder are set to "PostDraw" for the overlaid plots to make sure they get drawn on top of all the elements from the global field.

This example was contributed by Daniel Reinert of Deutscher Wetterdienst (the German Meteorological Service).