UXarray: An extension to Xarray supporting analysis and visualization of kilometer-scale model outputs
Reaching kilometer-scale resolutions in climate and global weather modeling has necessitated a shift to unstructured computational meshes. Output from this new generation of models presents myriad challenges for their subsequent analysis, largely due to a lack of community tools supporting unstructured grid data. Last year, we introduced UXarray, an extension to the ubiquitous Python package, Xarray, that provides native support - no regridding - for unstructured meshes. UXarray is funded by a U.S. NSF grant as part of Project Raijin. Over the past year, UXarray has matured significantly and is now capable of supporting many real-world analysis workflows applied to outputs from a growing number of high-resolution models and dynamical cores, including Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS), Community Atmosphere Model - Spectral Element (CAM-SE), Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM), and Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere Dynamical Core (FV3). This presentation will provide an overview of the UXarray’s current capabilities, which include extensive support for plotting, and many foundational analysis operators; will present plans for the future; and discuss ways for the earth system science community to help guide new developments.