1. pism.github.io
  2. jupyter

Visualisation of PISM output

This is an example/teaser how to visualise PISM model output with the Python package xarray. If you have questions or need help, feel free to contact me.

- Moritz Kreuzer (PIK, kreuzer@pik-potsdam.de), November 2021

Prerequisites

To run this notebook your python environment needs the following packages:

  • numpy
  • xarray
  • cftime
  • matplotlib
  • cartopy
  • netcdf4

A suitable environment can be installed using anaconda or mamba via:

mamba create -n py_env_xarray numpy cftime=1.2.1 jupyter xarray matplotlib cartopy netcdf4
source activate py_env_xarray
In [1]:
# importing packages
import numpy as np
import xarray as xr
import cftime

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import cartopy.crs as ccrs

import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=UserWarning)
In [7]:
# change matplotlib standard parameters
plt.rcParams['figure.figsize'] = 12,8

Plot Data

Loading data from disk. One PISM output file for the Antarctic and one for the Greenland ice sheet.

In [3]:
ds_ais =  xr.open_dataset('data/ais_extra.nc')
ds_gris = xr.open_dataset('data/gris_extra.nc')

xarray's standard plotting functionality

xarray automatically uses available metadata to label axes, adds a colorbar, etc.

In [4]:
fig, axis = plt.subplots(1,1, figsize=(8,6))

ds_ais['velsurf_mag'].plot(ax=axis)

axis.set_aspect('equal')

Plot data on a projection with cartopy

The cartopy package allows to plot data on maps and projections, which is useful when visualising spheric coordinates for example. For the Antarctic dataset, we choose a stereographic southpole projection and add a progressive colorbar.

In [5]:
map_proj = ccrs.SouthPolarStereo()
levels = [0, 1, 10, 100, 1000, 2000, 4000]

ax = ds_ais['velsurf_mag'].plot(
    transform=ccrs.PlateCarree(),
    x='lon', y='lat',
    cmap='cividis',
    levels=levels,
    cbar_kwargs={'ticks': levels}, 
    subplot_kws={'projection': map_proj})

ax.axes.gridlines(draw_labels=True)
Out[5]:
<cartopy.mpl.gridliner.Gridliner at 0x7f968466d730>

Adding coastlines with cartopy

Cartopy also comes with a predefined set of coastlines which can sometimes be useful to refer the data geographically. We plot here the ice sheet thickness of the Greenland data set.

In [6]:
map_proj = ccrs.Orthographic(central_longitude=-45.0, central_latitude=80.0)
levels = [0, 10, 100, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000]

ax = ds_gris['thk'].where(ds_gris['thk']>0,np.nan).plot(
    transform=ccrs.PlateCarree(),
    x='lon', y='lat',
    levels=levels,
    cbar_kwargs={'ticks': levels},
    subplot_kws={'projection': map_proj}
    )

ax.axes.coastlines()

gl = ax.axes.gridlines(draw_labels=True)
gl.bottom_labels = False
gl.right_labels = False
In [ ]: