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Climograph

climograph.Rd

Function to draw a climograph based on precipitation and air temperature data, with several options for customisation.

Usage

climograph(pcp, tmean, tmx, tmn, na.rm=TRUE,  
           from, to, date.fmt="%Y-%m-%d", 
           main="Climograph", pcp.label="Precipitation, [mm]", 
           tmean.label="Air temperature, [\U00B0 C]", start.month=1, pcp.solid.thr,
           pcp.ylim, temp.ylim,pcp.col="lightblue", pcp.solid.col="skyblue2", 
           tmean.col="darkred", tmn.col="blue", tmx.col="red",
           pcp.labels=TRUE, 
           tmean.labels=TRUE, tmx.labels=TRUE, tmn.labels=TRUE,
           pcp.labels.cex=0.8, temp.labels.cex=0.8,
           pcp.labels.dx=c(rep(ifelse(plot.pcp.probs, -0.25,  0.0),6), 
                           rep(ifelse(plot.pcp.probs, -0.25,  0.0),6)),
           pcp.labels.dy=rep(2, 12),
           temp.labels.dx=c(rep(-0.2,6), rep(0.2,6)), temp.labels.dy=rep(-0.4, 12),
           plot.pcp.probs=TRUE, pcp.probs=c(0.25, 0.75),
           plot.temp.probs=TRUE, temp.probs=c(0.25, 0.75), 
           temp.probs.col=c("#3399FF", "#FF9966", "#FFCC66"),
           temp.probs.alpha=0.3,
           lat, lon
           )

Arguments

pcp

variable of type zoo with monthly, daily or subdaily precipitation data.

tmean

variable of type 'zoo' with monthly, daily or subdaily mean temperature data.

tmx

variable of type 'zoo' with monthly, daily or subdaily maximum temperature data.
ONLY used (together with tmn) when tmean' is missing.

tmn

variable of type 'zoo' with monthly, daily or subdaily minimum temperature data. ONLY used (together with tmx) when tmean is missing.

na.rm

Logical. Should missing values be removed?
-) TRUE : the monthly values are computed considering only those values different from NA
-) FALSE: if there is AT LEAST one NA within a month, the resulting average monthly value is NA .

from

OPTIONAL, used for extracting a subset of values.
Character indicating the starting date for the values to be extracted. It must be provided in the format specified by date.fmt.

to

OPTIONAL, used for extracting a subset of values.
Character indicating the ending date for the values to be extracted. It must be provided in the format specified by date.fmt.

date.fmt

Character indicating the format in which the dates are stored in dates, from and to. See format in as.Date.
ONLY required when class(dates)=="factor" or class(dates)=="numeric".

main

Character representing the main title of the plot.

pcp.label

Character used in the legend to represent the monthly average precipitation (mostly thought for languages different from English).

tmean.label

Character used in the legend to represent the monthly average temperature (mostly thought for languages different from English).

start.month

[OPTIONAL]. Only used when the (hydrological) year of interest is different from the calendar year.

numeric in [1:12] indicating the starting month of the (hydrological) year. Numeric values in [1, 12] represents months in [January, December]. By default start.month=1.

pcp.solid.thr

[OPTIONAL]. Only used when using (sub)daily precipitation and temperature are gives as input data.
numeric, indicating the temperature, in degrees Celsius, used to discriminate between solid and liquid precipitation.

When daily tmean <= pcp.solid.thr the precipitation for that day is considered as solid precipitation.

pcp.ylim

[OPTIONAL] numeric of length 2 with the the range used for the precipitation axis. The second value should be larger than the first one.

temp.ylim

[OPTIONAL] numeric of length 2 with the the range used for the secondary temperature axis. The second value should be larger than the first one.

pcp.col

Color used in the legend to represent the monthly average precipitation.

pcp.solid.col

Color used in the legend to represent the monthly average solid precipitation.

tmean.col

Color used in the legend to represent the monthly average temperature.

tmn.col

Color used in the legend to represent the monthly minimum temperature.

tmx.col

Color used in the legend to represent the monthly maximum temperature.

pcp.labels

logical. Should monthly precipitation values to be shown above the bars?. By default pcp.labels=TRUE.

tmean.labels

logical. Should monthly mean temperature values to be shown above the lines?. By default tmean.labels=TRUE.

tmx.labels

logical. Should monthly maximum temperature values to be shown above the lines?. By default tmx.labels=TRUE.

tmn.labels

logical. Should monthly minimum temperature values to be shown above the lines?. By default tmn.labels=TRUE.

pcp.labels.cex

numeric giving the amount by which plotting characters used to show the numeric values of monthly precipitation values are scaled relative to the default.
It is only used when pcp.labels=TRUE.

temp.labels.cex

numeric giving the amount by which plotting characters used to show the numeric values of monthly air temperature values (mean, maximum, minimum) are scaled relative to the default.
It is only used when tmean.labels=TRUE or tmx.labels=TRUE or tmn.labels=TRUE.

pcp.labels.dx

numeric of length 12 giving the amount of horizontal coordinate positions that have to be used to shift the labels of monthly precipitation values.
It is only used when pcp.labels=TRUE.
Lengths smaller than 12 are recycled and larger lengths are not used.

pcp.labels.dy

numeric of length 12 giving the amount of vertical coordinate positions that have to be used to shift the labels of monthly precipitation values.
It is only used when pcp.labels=TRUE.
Lengths smaller than 12 are recycled and larger lengths are not used.

temp.labels.dx

numeric of length 12 giving the amount of horizontal coordinate positions that have to be used to shift the labels of monthly air temperature values (mean, maximum, minimum).
It is only used when tmean.labels=TRUE or tmx.labels=TRUE or tmn.labels=TRUE.
Lengths smaller than 12 are recycled and larger lengths are not used.

temp.labels.dy

numeric of length 12 giving the amount of vertical coordinate positions that have to be used to shift the labels of monthly air temperature values (mean, maximum, minimum).
It is only used when tmean.labels=TRUE or tmx.labels=TRUE or tmn.labels=TRUE.
Lengths smaller than 12 are recycled and larger lengths are not used.

plot.pcp.probs

logical used to decide whether to show uncertainty values around the monthly mean precipitation values. By default plot.pcp.probs=TRUE.
When plot.pcp.probs=TRUE the pcp.probs argument is used to define the values of the lower an upper uncertainty bounds.

pcp.probs

numeric of length 2. It defines the quantile values used to compute the lower an upper uncertainty bounds for each one of the 12 monthly precipitation values.
By default pcp.probs=c(0.25, 0.75), which indicates that the quantiles 0.25 and 0.75 are used to compute the lower an upper uncertainty bounds for each one of the 12 monthly precipitation values. If pcp is a (sub)daily zoo object, it is first aggregated into monthly values using mean, and then the pcp.probs quantiles are computed over all the monthly values belonging to a calendar month.

plot.temp.probs

logical used to decide whether to show uncertainty values around the monthly mean temperature values. By default plot.temp.probs=TRUE.
When plot.temp.probs=TRUE the temp.probs argument is used to define the values of the lower an upper uncertainty bounds.

temp.probs

numeric of length 2. It is used to define quantile values used to compute the lower an upper uncertainty bounds for each one of the 12 monthly mean temperature values.
If tmx and tmn are provided, then temp.probs are used to compute the lower an upper uncertainty bounds for each one of the 12 monthly maximum/minimum temperature values.
By default temp.probs=c(0.25, 0.75), which indicates that the quantiles 0.25 and 0.75 are used to compute the lower an upper uncertainty bounds for each one of the 12 monthly mean(maximum/minimum) values. If tmx/tmn is provided and is a (sub)daily zoo object, it is first aggregated into monthly values using mean, and then the temp.probs quantiles are computed over all the monthly values belonging to a calendar month.

temp.probs.col

character of length 3, with the colors used to for plotting the uncertainty bands around the average monthly values of the minimum, mean and maximum air temperature, respectively.
If tmx and tmn are not provided by the user, the second element of temp.probs.col will still be used to define the color of the uncertainty band around the mean monthly values of air temperature.

temp.probs.alpha

numeric of length 1, with the factor used to modify the opacity of temp.probs.col. Typically in [0,1], with 0 indicating a completely transparent colour and 1 indicating no transparency.

lat

[OPTIONAL] numeric or character used to show the latitude for which the climograph was plotted for.

lon

[OPTIONAL] numeric or character used to show the longitude for which the climograph was plotted for.

Author

Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, mzb.devel@gmail

Note

If the output climograph present some mixed or not legible characters, you might try resizing the graphical window and run climograph again with the new size, until you get the climograph in the way you want to.

See also

monthlyfunction

Examples

######################
## Ex1: Loading the DAILY precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperature at 
##      station Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)
data(MaquehueTemuco)
pcp <- MaquehueTemuco[, 1]
tmx <- MaquehueTemuco[, 2]
tmn <- MaquehueTemuco[, 3]

## Plotting a full climograph
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmx=tmx, tmn=tmn, na.rm=TRUE, 
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)

if (FALSE) {
## Plotting a climograph with uncertainty bands around mean values, 
## but with no labels for tmx and tmn
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmx=tmx, tmn=tmn, na.rm=TRUE, tmx.labels=FALSE, tmn.labels=FALSE, 
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)

## Plotting a climograph with uncertainty bands around mean values, but with no labels for 
##  tmx, tmn and pcp
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmx=tmx, tmn=tmn, na.rm=TRUE, 
                pcp.labels=FALSE, tmean.labels=FALSE, tmx.labels=FALSE, tmn.labels=FALSE, 
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)

## Plotting a climograph with no uncertainty bands around mean values
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmx=tmx, tmn=tmn, na.rm=TRUE, plot.pcp.probs=FALSE, plot.temp.probs=FALSE, 
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)

## Plotting the most basic climograph: only mean values of precipiation and air temperature
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmean=0.5*(tmn+tmx), na.rm=TRUE, plot.pcp.probs=FALSE, 
                plot.temp.probs=FALSE, main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", 
                lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)


## Plotting a full climograph, starting in April (start.month=4) instead of January (start.month=1),
## to better represent the hydrological year in Chile (South America)
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp, tmx=tmx, tmn=tmn, na.rm=TRUE, 
                start.month=4, temp.labels.dx=c(rep(-0.2,4), rep(0.2,6),rep(-0.2,2)),
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)


## Plotting a full climograph with monthly data
pcp.m <- daily2monthly(pcp, FUN=sum)
tmx.m <- daily2monthly(tmx, FUN=mean)
tmn.m <- daily2monthly(tmn, FUN=mean)
m <- climograph(pcp=pcp.m, tmx=tmx.m, tmn=tmn.m, na.rm=TRUE, 
                main="Maquehue Temuco Ad (Chile)", lat=-38.770, lon=-72.637)
}