The Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) comprises 1,470 square miles surrounding the Northern Channel Islands: Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara, protecting various species and habitats. However, these sensitive habitats are highly susceptible to climate-driven ‘shock’ events which are associated with extreme values of temperature, pH, or ocean nutrient levels. A particularly devastating example was seen in 2014-16, when extreme temperatures and changes in nutrient conditions off the California coast led to large-scale die-offs of marine organisms. Global climate models are the best tool available to predict how these shocks may respond to climate change. To better understand the drivers and statistics of climate-driven ecosystem shocks, a ‘large ensemble’ of simulations run with multiple climate models will be used. The objective of this project is to develop a Python-based web application to visualize ecologically significant climate variables near the CINMS. The web application will be used by researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to analyze climate model output, and by CINMS staff to develop new indicators of shocks to marine ecosystems.

README: GENERAL INFORMATION

This dataset is the files that accompany the website created for this project. A subsetted version of the CESM 1 dataset was downloaded to instantly update the website.

1. Title of the Project

Constructing Visualization Tools and Training Resources to Assess Climate Impacts on the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

2. Author Information

Graduate Students at the Bren School for Environmental Science & Management in the Masters of Environmental Data Science program 2023-2024.

A. Principal Investigators Contact Information

Names: Olivia Holt, Diana Navarro, and Patty Park

Institution: Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Address: Bren Hall, 2400 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93117

Emails: olholt@bren.ucsb.edu, dmnavarro@bren.ucsb.edu, p_park@bren.ucsb.edu

B. Associate or Co-investigator Contact Information

Name: Samantha Stevenson-Michener

Institution: Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Address: Bren Hall, 2400 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93117

Email: stevenson@bren.ucsb.edu

3. Date of data collection or obtaining (single date, range, approximate date)

Runs within the CESM1 large ensemble ocean dataset used in this toolkit:

ds_20C runs date range: 1920-01-16 to 2005-12-16

RCP85 runs: date range: 2006-01-16 to 2100-12-16

4. Geographic location of data collection:

Southern California coast, Channel Islands

Latitude (lat): range (-90 to 90 by 1.0) degrees_north

Longitude (lon): range (0 to 360 by 1.0) degrees_east

5. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data:

The CESM project is supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF)

SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION

1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data:

Public data, no restrictions

2. Links to publications that cite or use the data:

Main link to the dataset: https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens/data-sets

Publications: https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens/publications

On going project descriptions: https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens/research

A non technical overview: https://news.ucar.edu/123108/40-earths-ncars-large-ensemble-reveals-staggering-climate-variability

Information on data access through Amazon Web Services: https://ncar.github.io/cesm-lens-aws/

3. Recommended citation for the project:

Kay, J. E., Deser, C., Phillips, A., Mai, A., Hannay, C., Strand, G., Arblaster, J., Bates, S., Danabasoglu, G., Edwards, J., Holland, M. Kushner, P., Lamarque, J.-F., Lawrence, D., Lindsay, K., Middleton, A., Munoz, E., Neale, R., Oleson, K., Polvani, L., and M. Vertenstein (2015), The Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble Project: A Community Resource for Studying Climate Change in the Presence of Internal Climate Variability, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00255.1, 96, 1333-1349 [Article]

DATA & FILE OVERVIEW

1. File List:

→ .nc file needed for website:

files used to create the time series and vertical profile:
- 20C_rcp85_o2.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) and RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for O2 variable)
- 20C_rcp85_salt.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) and RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for SALT variable)
- 20C_rcp85_sst.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) and RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for SST variable)
- 20C_rcp85_temp.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) and RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for TEMP variable)
files used to create the mapping plot:
- SALT_20C_final.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) runs for SALT variable)
- SALT_RCP85_final.nc (contains RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for SALT variable)
- O2_20C_final.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) runs for O2 variable)
- O2_RCP85_final.nc (contains RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for O2 variable)
- SST_20C_final.nc (contains 20C (1920-2005) runs for SST variable)
- SST_RCP85_final.nc (contains RCP8.5 (2006-2100) runs for SST variable)

→cinms_py: Contains the files needed to load the shapefile of Channel Island Sanctuary. Shapefile information can be found here.

2. Are there multiple versions of the dataset?

This dataset is continuously being updated on a 5-7 year basis by NCAR.

METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION

1. Description of methods used for collection/generation of data:

This large ensemble was created by running the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model (CESM) 40 times from 1920 forward to 2100. With each simulation, the model's starting conditions were modified slightly by adjusting the global atmospheric temperature by less than one-trillionth of one degree.

2. Instrument- or software-specific information needed to interpret the data:

Python version: 3.9 or higher

Libraries needed: xarray, intake, intake-esm, requests, aiohttp, s3fs, zarr, gcsfs, Ipykernel, cfgrib

3. Describe any quality-assurance procedures performed on the data:

Diagnostics for each simulation are available from the model component packages and the Climate Variability Diagnostics Package.

Information linked here: https://www2.cesm.ucar.edu/experiments/cesm1.1/LE/

4. People involved with sample collection, processing, analysis and/or submission:

Dr. Clara Deser: a senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

Dr. Jennifer Kay: assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and an NCAR visiting scientist

DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR:

CESM1: specifically the monthly Ocean dataset

1. Number of variables:

4 variables for both 20C and RCP85.

2. Number of cases/rows:

8 rows by 11 columns

3. Variable List:

SALT: Salinity in gram/kilogram. Dimensions: time, z_t, nlat, nlon.

O2: Dissolved Oxygen in mmol/m^3. Dimensions: time, z_t nlat nlon.

TEMP: Potential temperature in degrees celsius. Dimensions: time, z_t, nlat, nlon.

SST: Surface Potential temperature in degrees celsius. Dimensions: time, nlat, nlon.

Other Variable list found in the dataset:

z_t: Depth (cm)

nlat: latitude associated with ocean cell index (not true latitude)

nlon: longitude associated with ocean cell index (not true longitude)

member_id: ID associated to a specific model

d2: amount of dimensions for the time frame

time: time frame in the format YYYY-MM-DD

time_bound: boundaries for time-averaging interval

Additional variable list can be found here: https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens/data-sets

4. Missing data codes:

n/a

5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used:

n/a

Constructing visualization tools and training resources to assess climate impacts on the channel islands national marine sanctuary NetCDF files

Data files

Abstract