Skip to content

FAQ

Jump to bottom
bekozi edited this page May 18, 2020 · 1 revision

Why should I use OpenClimateGIS?

Working with climate data in its native format is not ideal for all types of analyses and use cases. It often requires a technical skill (and software) not required to successfully work with other data and data formats. OpenClimateGIS is designed to operate in this grey area facilitating data access and minimizing "data jockeying". Furthermore, by working explicitly with data subsets data quantity is also minimized. It may also be the case that a particular analysis is regional in nature (e.g. county-level, management district). OpenClimateGIS is designed to work with regional use cases in mind. Lastly, raw data values from say a daily climate dataset may present too much resolution and complication if monthly or annual values are desired. The computational capabilities inside OpenClimateGIS provide methods to reduce the daily to data to statistically summarized values.

What exactly is OpenClimateGIS?

OpenClimateGIS is Python (v2.7, v3.5, v3.6) package used inside a Python scripting or application environment. It also sits nicely behind web frameworks that may interact with Python libraries.

How do I get OpenClimateGIS?

OpenClimateGIS releases are available for download here: https://github.com/NCPP/ocgis/releases

Where is the documentation?

Are there examples of how to use OpenClimateGIS?

Yes, example scripts are available here: http://ocgis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples.html

How do I know if my climate data is compatible with OpenClimatGIS?

If your dataset is CF-compliant (Climate and Forecasting Convention), then there should be no issue. Once you have the software installed, you can quickly inspect a dataset to determine if OpenClimateGIS can read its internal structure. If your data is not CF-compliant, it may still be compatible with OpenClimateGIS provided you overload some dimensional parameters.

OpenClimateGIS also reads and writes ESRI Shapefile, CSV, Unstructured Grid (UGRID), SCRIP, and ESMF Unstructured formats. It has read-only capability for ESRI File Geodatabases.

What is the overall goal of OpenClimateGIS project?

The climate modeling community typically stores climate data in multidimensional gridded formats capable of efficiently storing large volumes of data (e.g. NetCDF) while the geospatial community typically uses flexible vector and raster formats that are capable of storing small volumes of data (relative to the multidimensional gridded formats). OpenClimateGIS seeks to address this difference in data formats by clipping climate data to user-specified vector geometries (i.e. areas of interest) and translating the gridded data on-the-fly into multiple vector representations. The OpenClimateGIS system does not store climate data archives locally, but rather works in conjunction with external climate archives that expose climate data via the OPeNDAP protocol.

Clone this wiki locally