hovm: plot Hovmöller diagrams on a given or global domain (SST/climate boxes, … )

Plot Hovmöller diagrams on a given or global domain using NCL, and allowing for tuning a number of graphic attributes. Some SST/climate boxes are available to be passed to this operator (see below in Optional arguments).

The various cases are:

  • Time vs. Lon (or reverse): if exists, mean or section at a given point on Lat, and section at a given point on height, or
  • Time vs. Lat (or reverse): if exists, mean or section at a given point on Lon, and section at a given point on height, or
  • Time vs. Height (or reverse): if exists, mean or section at a given point on Lat/Lon.

Remark: If data grid is curvilinear, you have to do a projection on a rectilinear grid before using hovm, otherwise the mean on Lat or Lon axis will be rough/wrong.

References: https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/time_lon.shtml

Provider / contact: climaf at meteo dot fr

Inputs (in the order of CliMAF call):

  • a dataset can be up to 4-dimensional

Warning: Order of all data dimensions is supposed to be time, height, lat, lon.

Mandatory arguments:

  • mean_axis: set it to “Lat” or “Lon” if you want a mean on one of these axis or set it to “Point” if you want a section on one or more points (passed with xpoint, ypoint, zpoint; see further below).

    Remark: If rank of field is 2, mean_axis becomes an optional argument because this script will plot supplied coordinates.

  • xpoint, ypoint, zpoint: points for longitude, latitude and height respectively where section(s) will be made. These arguments apply on all fields (from 3D to 4D) which have corresponding dimension, so many arguments as upper number of dimensions for two is needed (number of remaining dimensions after an average on the latitude or the longitude axis if there was one). Set it to,

    • an integer if you want to select an index (first index is 0),
    • or a float if you want to select closest coordinate value.

    Remark: If mean_axis is set to “Point”, one or more of these arguments is mandatory depend on field dimension. On the other hand, if mean_axis is set to “Lat” or “Lon”, these arguments are not necessary mandatory depend on field dimension.

Optional arguments:

  • mean_axis: mandatory argument which can be optional (see above)
  • xpoint, ypoint, zpoint: arguments which can be optional (see above)
  • latS, latN, lonW, lonE: domain for plot and for averaged axis (if mean_axis is set to “Lat” or “Lon”); default: all domain (float or string). You can pass SST/climate boxes, available via function hovm_params(). This function returns a python dictionary with domain (i.e. latS, latN, lonW, lonE) to be passed to hovm operator with ‘**’ (see example Climaf call example).

  • title: string for graphic title; default: period + domain definition

    Remarks: the ~ character has a special meaning in NCL strings. It represents a function code. See function codes example page http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/fcodes.shtml for (more) examples of function codes. Particularly:

    • The ~C~ will put a carriage return to the title. By default it is left justified. If you need it centered, you will have to add spaces.
    • Use a ~Z#~ to resize text in mid-stream. The # refers to the percent of normal.
  • color: name of the Ncl colormap to use; see e.g. http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Graphics/color_table_gallery.shtml; default (climaf) is ‘amwg256’.

  • reverse: set it to True to reverse colormap; default: False.

  • scale, offset: for scaling the input field (x -> x*scale + offset); default = 1. and 0. (no scaling)

  • units: name of the field units; used in the caption; default is to use the corresponding CF metadata

  • invXY: set it to True to invert X axis and Y axis; default: False

  • fmt: a string specifying the format of the tick labels for time axis. This string is parsed as follows: the ‘%’ acts as the escape character. The single character after every ‘%’ is formatted according to the rule described here:

    https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/User_contributed/time_axis_labels.shtml

    In case fmt is absent, a minimal algorithm exists which tries to determine the format string depending on the time range length.

  • options: strings for setting NCL graphic resources directly. These resources are separated by “|”, as e.g.: ‘ options=”tiMainString=lv|tiXAxisString=longitude” ‘. These resources have higher priority than CliMAF default ones, which are:

    • tiMainString = period + domain definition
    • gsnLeftString = var
    • gsnRightString = (units) if data has “units” attribute else “(None)”
    • gsnCenterString = points where section(s) was(were) done, if any
    • txFontHeightF = 0.015
    • cnLineLabelFontHeightF = 0.015
    • cnInfoLabelFontHeightF = 0.01
    • cnFillOn = True
    • cnLinesOn = False
    • cnLineLabelsOn = False
    • cnMaxLevelCount = 25
    • cnRasterSmoothingOn = True
    • cnFillOpacityF = 0.6
    • lbLabelFont = “helvetica”
    • gsn[X or Y]AxisIrregular2Log = True; set x or y-axis (depend on invXY value) to log scale if the second dimension is a z-axis [height]
    • For time dimension on y-axis or x-axis depend on invXY value:
      • ti[Y or X]AxisString = “Time”
      • tm[Y or X]MajorGrid = True
      • tm[Y or X]MajorGridThicknessF = 0.5
      • tm[Y or X]MinorGridThicknessF= 0.25
    • For second dimension on x-axis or y-axis depend on invXY value:
      • ti[X or Y]AxisString = second dimension name
      • tm[X or Y]MajorGrid = True
      • tm[X or Y]MajorGridThicknessF = 0.5
      • tm[X or Y]MinorGrid = True
      • tm[X or Y]MinorGridThicknessF = 0.25
      • tm[XB or YL]LabelFontHeightF = 0.018
      • tm[YL or XB]LabelFontHeightF = 0.02
      • tm[XB or YL]TickSpacingF = floattointeger(Xfeatures(2)) where Xfeatures = nice_mnmxintvl(min(XArray), max(XArray), 4, False) and XArray is the array of values of second dimension
    • To set some “nice” contour levels for field to plot: if mnmxint(0).ge.0 where mnmxint = nice_mnmxintvl(min(fld(:,:)), max(fld(:,:)), 21, False),
      • cnLevelSelectionMode = “ManualLevels”
      • cnMinLevelValF = mnmxint(0)
      • cnMaxLevelValF = mnmxint(1)
      • cnLevelSpacingF = mnmxint(2)/2.

    For more details, see: https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/

  • format: graphic output format, either ‘png’, ‘pdf’ or ‘eps’; default: ‘png’. For ‘png’ format, all the surrounding extra white space are cropped with optional argument trim (but not for ‘pdf’ or ‘eps’ format). In case of ‘pdf’ or ‘eps’ format, if you want to trim extra white space, use ‘cpdfcrop’ (which is ‘pdfcrop’ tool) or ‘cepscrop’ operator respectively.

  • trim: set it to True if you want to crop all the surrounding extra white space for ‘png’ format; default: True.

  • resolution: string for output image resolution

    • if format is “png”, resolution specifies the width and height of resultant image in pixels as e.g. 800x1200; default (ncl): 1024x1024
    • if format is “pdf” or “eps”, resolution specifies either the width and height of the paper, as above but in inches unit, or a standard paper size by name, as e.g. ‘A4’. Ncl uses a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi); default (ncl): 8.5x11 or “letter” (<=> 612x792 pixels)
Outputs :
  • main output: a PNG or PDF or EPS figure
Climaf call example :: For more examples which are systematically tested, see

hovm.py

>>> # 4D field: ta(time, plev, lat, lon)
>>> ta=ds(project='example', simulation="AMIPV6ALB2G", variable="ta", frequency='monthly', period="1980")
>>> # Mean on latitude axis: you must set only one point (xpoint, ypoint or zpoint) because rank=4 and a mean on latitude is done
>>> # Plot a Hovmöller diagram on all domain, at level index 3, and using %c for 'fmt' (i.e. small month abbreviation e.g., Jun):
>>> diag_xt=hovm(ta, title='Temperature', mean_axis='Lat', zpoint=3,fmt="%c") # => plot (x,t), or mean_axis="Lon" and zpoint=3 => plot (y,t)
>>> cshow(diag_xt)
>>> # Diagram on domain [-10,0,-90,-80] at longitude close to 360 and where X and Y are inverted:
>>> diag_tz=hovm(ta, title='Temperature', mean_axis='Lat', xpoint=360., fmt="%c", latS=-10, latN= 0, lonW=-90, lonE=-80,
>>> ... invXY=True) # => plot (t,z) or mean_axis="Lon" and ypoint=3 => plot (t,z)
>>> # No mean: section at different points => you must set two points (xpoint, ypoint or zpoint) because rank=4
>>> # Diagram on 'NINO1-2' box with 'CBR_wet' colorpalette and 'options' for tuning NCL graphic resources:
>>> diag_section=hovm(ta, title='Temperature', mean_axis='Point', xpoint=2, zpoint=1500.,
>>> color="CBR_wet", options="tiXAxisString=latitude|cnLinesOn=True",
>>> **hovm_params('NINO1-2')) # => plot (y,t), or ypoint/zpoint => plot (x,t), or xpoint/ypoint => plot (z,t)
>>> # 3D field: pr(time, lat, lon)
>>> cdef("project","erai")
>>> cdef("frequency","monthly")
>>> cdef("period","1979-2008")
>>> dataerai=ds( simulation="erai", variable="pr", grid="T127" )
>>> # Mean on latitude axis: you must not set points because rank=3 and a mean on latitude is done
>>> # If you use xpoint/ypoint/zpoint, selected points are not considered.
>>> ploterai=hovm(dataerai, mean_axis="Lat", color="CBR_wet", **hovm_params('NINO1-2'))

Side effects: None

Implementation: Basic use of ncl: gsn_csm_hov