NCL Workshop at the University of Maine

April 23-25, 2014
Room 48 at Stodder Hall
The University of Maine
Orono, Maine

Hosted by the Climate Change Institute (CCI) at the University of Maine and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Special thanks to Andrei Kurbatov for his help in organizing this workshop!

Registration is closed for this workshop.

Description

This workshop is an introduction on using NCL to read, analyze, and visualize earth sciences data. It is geared towards new users of NCL, but we welcome all levels of users.

Intermediate and experienced NCL users and/or faculty members who wish to sit in on the lectures are also welcome.

The workshop will consist of both lectures and intensive hands-on labs where students will use NCL to analyze and visualize their own datasets. The lectures are co-taught by Dennis Shea, an associate scientist in NCAR/NESL, and Mary Haley, the NCL project lead and a software engineer in NCAR/CISL. Wei Huang, a software engineer at NCAR/CISL, will be providing support during the hands-on labs.

For the hands-on labs, students and staff of the University of Maine will be able to logon to the lab computers.

Students from other universities must bring their own laptops running UNIX (Linux, MacOS, or Cygwin/X if a Windows system). See this section for information on installing NCL.

The lectures include introductions to:

The hands-on labs are where students really learn how to use NCL. See "How to get the most out of the workshop labs" for more information.

Schedule

[Note: schedule may change slightly to accommodate instructors' and/or students' schedules. We will try to update this schedule immediately if there are any changes.]

Wednesday, April 23, 2014
08:30-09:00 Pick up workshop materials
(Instructors will be on hand to help students with computer issues, if necessary.)
09:00-10:30 Lecture: NCL Language Basics
10:30-10:45 Break with coffee, fruit, and bagels
10:45-11:15 Lecture: NCL Language Basics (continued)
11:15-12:00 Lecture: NCL File Input/Output
12:00-13:00 Lunch on your own
13:00-13:45 Interactive demo
14:00-16:00 Hands-on lab
Thursday, April 24, 2014
09:00-10:30 Lecture: NCL Graphics
10:30-10:45 Break with coffee, fruit, and bagels
10:45-12:00 Lecture: NCL Graphics (continued) and demos
12:00-13:00 Lunch on your own
13:00-13:30 Hands-on lab
13:30-14:00 NCL website tour
14:00-16:00 Hands-on lab
Friday, April 25, 2014
09:00-10:30 Lecture: NCL Data Analysis
10:30-10:45 Break with coffee, fruit, and bagels
10:45-12:00 Lecture: NCL Data Analysis (continued)
12:00-13:00 Lunch on your own
13:00-16:00 Hands-on lab

How to get the most out of the workshop labs

The hands-on labs will be in the same room as the lectures.

The workshop labs are highly focused on helping students write NCL scripts that analyze and visualize datasets that students are already working with, rather than using canned datasets.

The instructors find that students get far more out of the labs if they have one or more datasets in mind that they'd like to analyze using NCL, and with a specific goal that they'd like to accomplish. For example:

  • "I want to use NCL to convert my ASCII files to NetCDF."
  • "I need to learn NCL so I can modify existing scripts."
  • "I want to learn NCL so I can compare it with other analysis tools."
  • "I want to create visualizations that compare my data to observational data."
  • "I need to create some publication-quality graphics for my dissertation."
  • "I would like to learn how to interpolate my data to a different grid."

During the labs, the instructors will work with students one-on-one to help download the datasets to their machines (if necessary), and then to write new NCL scripts or modify existing ones that analyze their data.

It's okay if you don't have any datasets to work with or a specific goal to accomplish. We will provide canned datasets and sample scripts just in case.

Before the workshop, if any student wants to provide us with one or more sample datasets that they plan to work with during the labs, then we will try to incorporate them into the lectures and demos, if possible.

You can use our ftp site to upload your data, but please do this at least a week before the workshop starts. Email Mary and Dennis with the exact names of the files and tell us what you'd like to accomplish with them.

FTP instructions: 

    ftp ftp.cgd.ucar.edu
    <log in as "anonymous">
    <Use email address as password>
    cd incoming
    put file1
    put file2
    . . .
    quit

Installing NCL on your laptop

UMaine students and faculty will have access to computers with NCL already installed.

If you are not from UMaine, or want to install NCL on a personal laptop, then we recommend installing NCL from a precompiled-binary, rather than from source code. Versions 6.1.2 or 6.2.0 of NCL are okay for the lab.

Go to the NCL download page and read the first three bullets about 1) getting an Earth System Grid account, 2) downloading the appropriate NCL binary, and 3) installing the NCL binary.

If you have questions or problems, email Mary Haley or send email to the ncl-install email list. Mary will be out of the office April 3-12, so she will email you sometime the week of April 13-17. She is also happy to help you install NCL during the hands-on lab sessions at the NCL workshop.

Prerequisites

Students attending this workshop will get more out of the workshop if they meet the following minimum requirements:

  • Have a basic knowledge of UNIX (MacOSX, Linux, or Cygwin/X), like how to list the directory contents, how to move or copy files from one directory to another, how to run programs from the UNIX command line, how to use ftp/sftp to upload/download files, and how to remotely login to other systems (via ssh, for example).

  • Know how to edit files using UNIX editors like vi/vim, emacs, or nedit.

  • Have written code using an interpreted (e.g. Python, IDL, MATLAB) or a non-interpreted (e.g. Fortran, C) computer language.

Students who don't have knowledge of UNIX or at least one computer language will likely find the NCL workshop too advanced.

Hotel near university

For people traveling from out-of-town, the best option is University Inn. It's about a 10-minute walk from there to Stodder Hall.

Workshop organizers and support

We'd like to thank the following people at the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine for their support in hosting and funding this workshop:

Andrei Kurbatov Main NCL workshop liaison, CCI Associate Research Professor
Paul A. Mayewski CCI Director
Jasmine E. Saros CCI Associate Director and Professor
Kirk Maasch CCI Professor
Sean Birkel Assistant Research Professor
Betty Lee Travel and administrative support