In dlebauer/climate-utils: clim-utils

climate-utils

library(knitr)
opts_chunk$set(message = FALSE, cache=TRUE)

ClimateUtils: exploring, transforming, and plotting climate data

How to downloading and install

install.packages("devtools")
library(devtools)
install_github("climate-utils", "dlebauer") ## takes a while, lots of data

Example downloading RH and T, then calculating and plotting VPD

Here is an example of using the ClimateUtils package to calculate amd map summer VPD (vapor pressure deficit) in the midwest US.

The steps are:

run get.ncep.vpd

This function is a wrapper for the NCEP.gather function (from the RNCEP package). It combines the following steps:

1. downloads relative humidity and temperature from NCEP
2. calculates VPD using the get.es and get.vpd functions

These functions use the following equations:

• es saturation vapor pressure
• es = 6.11 * exp((2.5 * 10^6 / 461) * (1 / 273 - 1 / (273 + temp)))
• VPD vapor pressure deficit
• vpd = ((100 - rh) / 100) * es

See ?get.ncep.vpd, ?get.es, and ?get.vpd for details. (source code for calculating es and vpd are in the R/utils.R file)

Plot VPD

library(ClimateUtils)

## Download RH, T from NCEP and calculate VPD
midwest.vpd <- get.ncep.vpd(lat = c(40,45), lon = c(-90, -82), 
                            years = c(2010, 2012), months = c(6, 8))

states <- map_data("state", 
                   region=c("michigan", "wisconsin", "illinois", 
                            "indiana", "ohio", "pennsylvania", 
                            "new york", "iowa", "missouri", "kentucky", "west virginia"))

## Plot it
ggplot() + 
  geom_raster(data = midwest.vpd, aes(longitude - 360, latitude, fill = VPD)) + 
  geom_polygon(data = states, aes(long,lat,group = group), color = 'grey20', alpha = 0) +
  theme_bw()

References:

VanLoocke et al 2012 A regional comparison of water use efficiency for miscanthus, switchgrass and maize http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192312001931

Hartmann, D. Global Physical Climatology. Academic Press

dlebauer/climate-utils documentation built on May 15, 2019, 9:13 a.m.