Some Ferret tips and pointers

Ferret

Ferret is a NetCDF vizualisation tool which can be used to postprocess and visualize PCM outputs.

This free software is from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the relevant webpage where you can learn how to install and use it is here: https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/

There is a bug in the Mac OSX version as of 2023-October with respect to plotting. The bug is not subtle as the plotting does not work. Here is a discussion of how to by pass the problem by having two version of Ferret: the latest version for analyses, and an older version where the plotting works [LINK TO BE INSERTED].

For first timers

Ferret is essentially a command line tool so the first thing you'll need to do is launch it from your terminal

ferret

(on some system, e.g. Ubuntu, the executable is called ferret_viz because another unrelated software also called ferret exists).

Once under Ferret you should see the Ferret prompt:

yes?

To load a datafile, for example diagfi.nc issue command:

yes? use diagfi.nc

Once the file has been loaded, you can query for its contents with the command show data ...

Various tips and pointers

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How to make a 1D plot

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How to make a 2D map

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How to compute a zonal average

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