Frequently asked questions

FAQs and PISM life hacks

Photo: J.-M. Nasse / imaggeo

How do I visualize PISM results?

Ncview

For a quick view into PISM’s NetCDF output files, Ncview is a useful tool.

Python

Some recommendations for Python packages that allow easy plotting of NetCDF datasets are listed below:

For a list of more useful Python plotting tools, see here.

QGIS

See repos and resources for more information.

Panoply

Panoply is a cross-platform NetCDF data viewer actively developed by NASA and more comprehensive than Ncview (requires Java).

Color tables

Here’s a link collection to some nice color maps:

  • Scientific colour maps by Fabio Crameri: perceptually uniform, readable both by colour-vision deficient and colour-blind people, citable & reproducible
  • cmocean: Perceptually uniform beautiful color maps for oceanography
  • ColorBrewer: Color advice for cartography

For even more scale color tables, J.J. Green’s cpt-city website includes countless color palettes in various file formats.

How do I install PISM on a High Performance Computer?

Scripts that help build PISM and its prerequisites (such as PETSc) on some HPC system are provided here.

How do I prepare real data for input to PISM?

This page lists resources that can help you prepare input data for Antarctic, Greenland and Arctic PISM applications.

Furthermore, command line tools

are useful for manipulating data in the NetCDF format.

See Regridding with CDO for a good overview of regridding (interpolation between different grids) using CDO.

How do I report a bug in PISM?

Please see the Issue tracking at github to check if someone already found a similar bug. You can post an issue there, and label it as a bug, if it is new. For more information, see here.

How do I cite PISM in a publication that uses it?

See the information given here.

PISM’s stress balance solver failed. What do I do?

This page gives more information on this.

How do I create a parameter ensemble of PISM simulations?

For an example for Antarctica, see the pism-ensemble.

Latest news

MPI-GEA: PhD position on the interaction of ice sheets, ocean and sea level

In the department of Integrative Earth system science at the newly founded Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) in Jena, Germany, we are providing a three-year PhD position as part of the DFG priority program “Antarctic Research with Comparative Investigations in Arctic Ice Areas”.

PIK Potsdam: PostDoc positions in ice sheet and Earth system modelling

A two-year PostDoc positions in ice sheet and Earth system modelling is available in the Ice Dynamics group, as part of the new Earth Resilience Science Unit (ERSU), at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

U Copenhagen: 2 PhD positions in ice sheet modelling at the Niels Bohr Institute

Two PhD fellowship positions in ice sheet modelling are advertised at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.