TopoSCALE

TopoSCALE is a downscaling tool that uses the well-resolved description of the atmospheric column provided by atmospheric models, together with high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs), to downscale coarse-grid climate variables to a fine-scale subgrid. The main aim of this approach is to provide high-resolution driving data for a land-surface model (LSM). Full desciption available in this publication: http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/7/387/2014/

Dependencies

Python specific dependencies are bundled in the virtual env distributed with the code repository and defined in the requirements.txt file . Additional system requirments:

  • linux (not tested on other platforms)

  • python 2.7 (to be updated to py3)

  • gdal:

    apt-get install gdal

  • pip:

    apt-get install pip
    
  • Climate Data Operators (CDO) used to concat monthly netcdfs downloaded from ECMWF:

    apt-get install cdo
    
  • ECMWF CDS API set up:

    https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/CKB/How+to+migrate+from+ECMWF+Web+API+to+CDS+API
    

Quickstart

Get the code using git:

git clone https://github.com/joelfiddes/tscaleV2.git

or direct download:

https://github.com/joelfiddes/tscaleV2/archive/master.zip

Activate virtual environment:

cd ./tscale
source env/bin/activate

Modes of operation

POINT:
Generates downscaled timeseries for a specific point defined by long/lat
TSUB:
Generates downsclaed timeseried for TopoSUB cluster centroids
GRID:
Generates a 2D grid of surface fields corresponding to input DEM.

Tutorial

The github repo contains a full example to set up a first prototype and understand how the code runs.