How to ... Use the User Support System (USS)

Textual manual

Help Items
How to Handle Boxes	How to manipulate maps	How to compare scenarios in a splitview	How to export data to GIS
How to manipulate filled- & line- graphs	How to load scenarios	How to export data to Excel
How to manipulate bar- and pie- charts	How to compare scenarios in graphs	How to view Documentation

This manual describes the handling of and navigation in the USS. You can print it and use it as a technical reference.

How to Handle Boxes

0) Home of USS

The Home of USS contains two buttons to different views:

• All Indicators (17 Regions) View contains over 200 indicators.
• Aggregated Indicators (IPCC regions) View: some indicators have been aggregated to the 4 IPCC regions.

1) Box types and their handling

The 'All Indicators' view of USS is designed as a hierarchical system of boxes. A box may contain other boxes or an indicator. The four main boxes are all boxes containing boxes.

A box may be opened by double clicking or selecting 'open' from the right click menu. Alternatively, 'open all' from the right-click menu will open the box and all its underlying boxes. This may demand some processing power from your computer!

2) Indicator types

An indicator may be represented in a graph, chart or in a map.

A cream-colored box contains a graph or chart, a blue box contains a map.

3) Popup menu for a closed indicator box

Only the options in the upper part of the popup menu are used for handling boxes.

• Open: displays the next level of the box without changing the box size.
• Zoom in: displays the same, but uses the entire window.

4) Popup menu for an open indicator box

• Close: closes the current box and returns to the previous level.
• Zoom out: zooms out to the previous level but does not close the box.

5) Popup menu for a box containing boxes

Compared to the menu of indicator boxes, this menu has two additional options in the upper part:

• Close all: closes the current box and all the boxes contained in it.
• Open all: opens all the boxes on the lower levels and displays the indicators. (This may take some time!)

How to manipulate filled & line graphs

A graph is composed of a graph area and a border area. The right border shows the dimensions and classes of this particular indicator. The left border shows the unit and its range. The lower border shows the time axis. From the edit menu or from the menubar several gizmo's can be opened to manipulate graphs.

2) The Edit menu

The Edit menu contains the folowing options:

• Domain: to scale the X-axis.
• Dimension: to make a cross-section of classes of the available dimensions.
• Range: to scale the Y-axis.
• Widget: to define the representation type.

3) The Widget Gizmo

The Widget Gizmo displays the indicator definition and its representation.

The representation type 'Graph' may be changed into a bar or pie chart (see help item 'Bar and pie graphs').

Each representation type has several subtypes.

4) The Filled Graph

This shows the representation type 'Graph' and subtype 'Filled'.

5) The Dimension Gizmo

The Dimension Gizmo displays the dimensions and their classes. Indicators may be defined over one or more dimensions.

Only one of these dimensions may have the box 'single' unchecked!

6) Dimension and classes selection

A dimension has a name followed by a selection type in parentheses.

Changing the selection of 'Regions (t)', for instance, will affect the classes selection of all indicators with the same dimension identifier!

How to manipulate bar and pie charts

1) Open the Widget Gizmo

Many USS indicators have multiple dimensions. Transformation to a different chart type and the inclusion of time animation may enable a more detailed view on the data.

To this end, select the Widget Gizmo from the edit menu

2) Transformation to different chart type

In the Widget Gizmo, you can select the type of chart you would like to display the data in, as well as the substype and the dimension.

Note: changing these settings will also alter the settings in the Dimension Gizmo. If you are experiencing trouble with returning to your initial settings, most likely this is because the settings in the Dimension Gizmo have changed as well. Specifically, the 'single' checkbox may have becom checked.

3) Adjusting the Range

The Range Gizmo allows you to adjust the Y-axis in two ways:

a) Auto option, minimum and maximum of the dataset will be used as range for the Y-axis.
b) Manually adjust Minimum and/or Maximum.

4) Time animation

The Time control is a tool for time animation.
The current year is displayed in the title and as Time value in the Time control.

5) Time animation details

Animation speed, minimum and maximum year of the animation can be set in the details section (the >> button) of the Time Control.

6) Transformation to pie chart

Use a pie chart to focus on the distribution over the classes. Time animation shows you the dynamics in the distribution.

Creating a pie chart is analogous to creating a bar chart. Select the desired dimension in the Widget Gizmo and set the SINGLE option = off.

How to manipulate maps

Map indicators display data on a 0.5 by 0.5 degree world grid.

Data may be represented as a color range (for such ranges as millimeters per day) or as qualifiers (for such ranges as 'Land-cover types').

Time animation makes it possible to view the evolution of the current scenario over time up to the year 2100.

1) Time animation

The Time control is a tool for time animation. It can be accessed under the tools menu, by pressing Ctrl+T, or by clivcking the Time Control symbol in the toolbar.

Animation speed, minimum and maximum year of the animation can be set in the details section of the Time Control (under the >> button on the control).

2) Out of range values

Grids with values beyond the color range will be displayed in black.

You can adjust the range using the Range Gizmo. (from the Edit menu on the menubar.)

3) The Range Gizmo

The Range Gizmo lets you adjust the range in two ways:

a) Auto option: minimum and maximum of the displayed data will be used to set the range.

b) Manually adjust Minimum and/or Maximum.

4) Zoom in on region

The right mouse click will bring a regions popup to the front. You can choose between 12 regions to zoom in, or the world to zoom out again.

5) Adjusted range to a better suit a zoomed region

You can adjust the range manually to get a better picture of the differences in a zoomed region.

How to load scenarios

USS includes the SRES scenarios: A1B (A1-balanced), A1T (A1-technology), A1F (A1-fossil), A2, B1 & B2. All indicators are available for these scenarios. Additionally, simulations were made with changed climate sensitivity for the A1F and B1 scenarios (A1F low, A1F high, B1 low, B1 high). All indicators except for the IPCC Indicators are implemented for these scenarios. For a description of these different scenarios, see the scenarios section.

When you start USS, the B1 scenario is loaded by default. You can load the other scenarios and select the one you are interested in. Below is described how to do this.

1) Open Scenario Manager

From the 'tools' menu, select 'scenario manager'.

A window with the following options pops up:

• Select: Effectuates the selected scenario from the list
• Load: Opens the Window 'Load scenario' from where you can add scenarios to the list by loading them.
• Unload: Unloads a scenario and removes it from the list
• Save: To Save the scenario under a different name (not advised).

2) Load a scenario

Window 'Load Scenario' pops up with a list of all available scenarios. You can select a scenario to load and effectuate it with the OK button. This scenario becomes the active scenario.

3) Scenarios loaded

Now you can switch between scenarios by clicking on the Select button. Note that you have to highlight the scenario, then press the 'Select' and 'OK' buttons in order to select the scenario.

How to compare scenarios in graphs

1) Select Indicator

It is possible to compare different scenarios for one indicator in the same graph. To this end, zoom in on the indicator you want to compare.

2) Load Scenarios

With the scenario manager (under the tools menu), load the scenarios you want to compare (see How to load scenarios).

3) Open the Dimension Gizmo

Access the Dimension Gizmo under the edit menu or from the menubar. With this, you can control the different dimensions of an indicator dispayed in the graph.

Every graph indicator has a scenario dimension. If an indicator compares different regions, it also has a region dimension. In that case the box 'singe' should be marked when the dimension 'regions' is selected from the pull down menu.

If you then select scenarios from the pulldown menu in the dimension gizmo, uncheck the box 'single'. Now you can select the diffent scenarios you want to compare by highlighting them. (Also possible with the 'All' button).

4) Comparable scenarios

All loaded scenarios are displayed on the indicator graphs. You can compare the scenarios of each indicator.

5) Reset

When finished, restore the original setting of the dimensions and their selected classes. Otherwise the display of other indicators may become disturbed.

How to compare scenarios in a splitview

1) Map indicator

The split window function allows you to compare scenarios of an indicator by displaying two or more windows, each loaded with a different scenario.

The Windows menu on the menubar contains the options:

• Horizontal Split, Vertical Split: splits the window
• Tile: distributes the windows. If you had altered the size of the split windows by dragging them, this option resets them to their original values.
• Join: Joins the slected window with the adjacent window(s) that are equal or .

2) Split window

You can split a window as often as you need to. Each window acts independently and offers you a copy of the USS. You can open another indicator or select another scenario for the same indicator in the new window. Please do note that opening a lot of indicators at the same time demands a lot from your processor and memory.

3) Rearranged windows

You can rearrange the windows by dragging the borderline. The Tile option on the window menu resets the windows.

4) Load scenarios

Each window may be linked to another scenario, allowing you to make comparisons (see How to load scenarios).

5) Ready to compare

The Time Manager allows you to explore the differences of map indicators for the selected scenarios (see How to manipulate maps)

6) Synchronized time animation

Use the Time Control to play the animation. Animation is synchronic for every window.

7) End year of scenarios

After you play the animation, USS shows you the end-year data of this indicator for the selected scenarios.

8) Join the views

When you have finished comparing, you will need to return to one window again. Split windows may be joined back to one by selecting the 'Join' option from the window menu.

How to export data to Excel

Select the indicator
Select the dataset that you want to export (use the dimension and the widget gizmo)
Place the cursor in the border area and right mouse click
Select the option: Save selection as Excel...
Save the xml-file somewhere on your disk
Open the xml-file with excel

How to export maps

Converting an IMAGE map file into an asciiGrid file, which can be read by GIS software requires the next steps:

1. Find the data
2. Find out the name of a IMAGE map
3. Convert the file(s) with the included application 'm2gis'

1) How to find the data

The data are organised per scenario. The folder data contains the scenario subfolders (i.e. B1, B2, A2, etc.). Each scenario-folder contains a map folder with all the mapfiles of that scenario. You can select the Whole directory option and browse to the map folder of a particular scenario or select the one file option and browse to the file to convert. Note: converting a whole directory will result in approximately 250 MB data.

2) How to determine the name of a particular IMAGE map

• Start the User Support System (USS)
• Navigate to and select the map (blue boxes in USS) you want to convert
• Go to menubar Edit and select Widget; a dialog appears
• The filename is the uppercase part of the widget property.

For example: in case of the landcover map the widget property is:
integer GLCTb[66663](t)
The filename of the map is the Uppercase string GLCT

3) How to convert a map file from IMAGE 2.2 SRES scenarios with m2gis.exe

This application converts the binary map files of the IMAGE USS into asciiGrid files, which can be read by GIS software. The asciiGrid file consists of a map header and 720 by 360 numbers. NODATA is represented by -9999.

You can select one file or all the files in a directory to convert. The default option is converting one file.

An IMAGE map-file is composed of data about multiple years (usually 5) and in some cases also about an extra dimension (i.e. crop type). Conversion results in a asciiGrid file per year per dimension (if applicable). The files will be stored in the selected outputdirectory and will be named: <filename>_<year>[_<dimension number>].asc

• Start m2Gis.exe. It can be found under programs -> IMAGE 2.2 USS -> m2gis
• Choose between the options one file or whole directory
• Browse to the scenario folder, the map folder and select the file (option one file) or select the map folder (option whole directory)
• Browse to an outputdirectory on your system
• Activate convert
• Wait until finished....