Re: [las_users] some z-levels of special variables cannot be displayed by LAS

[Ansley Manke <ansley.b.manke@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martin,
This does not have to do with the valid_range attribute. The Ferret 
scripts in LAS do not make use of that attribute.  This is the variable 
"Age after surface contact" in the LAS, correct?  I am not having any 
trouble getting plots back for longitude/time, latitude/time, depth-time 
for that variable, so I haven't yet seen what the problem is.

The symbol DATA_PLOTTED_MIN is defined in the Ferret scripts as the 
value of the symbol ($ppl$zmin).  ppl$zmin is defined by Plot Plus when 
a plot is made, so I suspect that the plot has not been drawn 
successfully in the cases you are seeing. However that should result in 
an error before any attempt is made to define the symbol DATA_PLOTTED_MIN.

Would you send me a debug output for a case that is failing, and then we 
should be able to come up with a fix.  We can take the discussion 
off-line from the list, and report back when we have a conclusion.

Ansley

On 3/24/2011 7:35 AM, Martin Schmidt wrote:
> Hi,
> I am trying to put model results on a LAS. The server is working since 
> some time, hence it is not the latest version
> of LAS (7.0.3) and ferret (6.2).
>
> The data consist of many time slices in many files coupled together 
> with a ferret descriptor file. Each file contains
> about 20 variables and has exactly the same structure.
>
> The configuration xml-file has old style and looks like:
>
> <datasets>
> <template_nc name="Atlantic ecosystem model" doc="">
> <variables>
> <eta_t
>     
> url="file:/u/las/las-daten/atlantic_genus_9_bio_desfiles/ocean_day.des#eta_t"
>     name="sea surface height (t-cells) " units="m">
> <link match="/lasdata/grids/template_nc_XT_OCEAN_YT_OCEAN_TIME_grid"/>
> </eta_t>
> <age_global
>     
> url="file:/u/las/las-daten/atlantic_genus_9_bio_desfiles/ocean_day.des#age_global"
>     name="Age after surface contact" units="y">
> <link 
> match="/lasdata/grids/template_nc_XT_OCEAN_YT_OCEAN_ST_OCEAN_TIME_grid"/>
> </age_global>
> <salt
>     
> url="file:/u/las/las-daten/atlantic_genus_9_bio_desfiles/ocean_day.des#salt"
>     name="Salinity" units="g/kg">
> <link 
> match="/lasdata/grids/template_nc_XT_OCEAN_YT_OCEAN_ST_OCEAN_TIME_grid"/>
> </salt>
>
> This works fine for most variables. However there are some exceptions. 
> Here I get errors like
>
>  Cached data cleared from memory
>  **ERROR: command syntax: DATA_PLOTTED_MIN = ???
> DEFINE SYMBOL data_plotted_min =
> Command file, command group, or REPEAT execution aborted
> STOP -script mode, ERROR RUNNING SCRIPT statement executed
>
> The LAS is
> http://phy-49.io-warnemuende.de:8080
> The data set in question is "Atlantic ecosystem model"
> salt, temperature and ecosystem variables can be displayed.
> A critical variable is age_global that cannot be displayed in horizontal
> sections different from the surface layer. Other sections can be shown.
> I could not find the reason for this error. Offline, with ferret 
> everything works fine.
> Here is the variable definition in the netcdf file.
>         float salt(time, st_ocean, yt_ocean, xt_ocean) ;
>                 salt:long_name = "Salinity" ;
>                 salt:units = "psu" ;
>                 salt:valid_range = -10.f, 100.f ;
>                 salt:missing_value = -1.e+20f ;
>                 salt:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
>                 salt:time_avg_info = "average_T1,average_T2,average_DT" ;
>                 salt:coordinates = "geolon_t geolat_t" ;
>                 salt:standard_name = "sea_water_salinity" ;
>         float age_global(time, st_ocean, yt_ocean, xt_ocean) ;
>                 age_global:long_name = "Age (global)" ;
>                 age_global:units = "yr" ;
>                 age_global:valid_range = 0.f, 1.e+20f ;
>                 age_global:missing_value = -1.e+20f ;
>                 age_global:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
>                 age_global:time_avg_info = 
> "average_T1,average_T2,average_DT" ;
>                 age_global:coordinates = "geolon_t geolat_t" ;
>                 age_global:standard_name = 
> "sea_water_age_since_surface_contact" ;
>
> Could it be that the valid_range starting with 0 is the problem? There 
> are 0 values
> of age_global in the file but no negative salinities.
> (There are other data sets with age variables, but here the data sets 
> do not have the
> valid_range attribute.)
>
> Does anyone know about such errors and/or a possible workaround?
>
> Greetings,
> Martin Schmidt