earlinet-reader 0.4.2

Package to read processed lidar data in the EARLINET NetCDF formats.

This package provides utilities to handle processed lidar data in one of EARLINET’s NetCDF formats. Currently it supports low-temporal-resolution files from EARLINET’s Single Calculus Chain pre-processor and files with aerosol optical properties.

Installation

You can install the package using the pip command:

pip install earlinet-reader

You can also install also directly from the source code. You should extract the code in a folder (e.g. earlinet-reader) and then run:

pip install ./earlinet-reader

Command line interface for ELPP files

The main way of using this package, is through the command line interface program called plotELPP.

The usage of the plotELPP program is described bellow:

usage: plotELPP [-h] [--vmin VMIN] [--vmax VMAX] [-v VARIABLE] [--log]
                [--normalize] [--normmin NORMMIN] [--normmax NORMMAX] [--grid]
                [--dpi DPI] [--errorevery ERROREVERY] [--html] [-d] [-s]
                file_patter [rmin] [rmax]

Command line tool to plot lidar pre-processed files from the SCC's ELPP.

positional arguments:
  file_patter           The path to a file (possibly including glob patterns).
  rmin                  Minimum range to plot (in km)
  rmax                  Maximum range to plot (in km)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --vmin VMIN           Minimum variable value to plot
  --vmax VMAX           Maximum variable value to plot
  -v VARIABLE, --variable VARIABLE
                        Name of variable to plot
  --log                 Plot log10 values of variable.
  --normalize           Normalize variables on molecular signal
  --normmin NORMMIN     If nomralize is selected, the minimum altitude for
                        normalization (in km).
  --normmax NORMMAX     If nomralize is selected, the maximum altitude for
                        normalization (in km).
  --grid                Show grid on the plots
  --dpi DPI             DPI of the output image
  --errorevery ERROREVERY
                        Plot error bar only every x points.
  --html                Create an HTML report.
  -d, --debug           Print dubuging information.
  -s, --silent          Show only warning and error messages.

For example, let’s assume you want to plot the content of the file 20170216oh00_584.nc.

• You can plot a single variable in the file using:

  plotELPP 20170216oh00_584.nc --variable elPR

• You can specify the minimum and maxi,um range of the plots e.g. from 0 to 5 km:

  plotELPP 20170216oh00_584.nc 0 5 --variable elPR

• You can tune few plotting parameters: turn the grid on and choose the output dpi:

  plotELPP 20170216oh00_584.nc --variable elPR --grid --dpi 200

• If you omit the variable parameter, you can show all variables in the netCDF file on a single plot:

  plotELPP 20170216oh00_584.nc

• You can see more info about the file by choosing the --html option:

  plotELPP 20170216oh00_584.nc --html

• You can perform the above operations for multiple files at once using * and ? as wildcards:

  plotELPP `20170216oh00_*.nc` --html

Command line interface for optical property files

You can plot files containing aerosol optical properties usign the commnad plotoptical. The usage is similar to the plotELPP program:

usage: plotoptical [-h] [-v VARIABLE] [--grid] [--dpi DPI]
                   [--errorevery ERROREVERY] [--html] [-d] [-s]
                   file_patter [zmin] [zmax]

Command line tool to plot lidar optical property files.

positional arguments:
  file_patter           The path to a file (possibly including glob patterns).
  zmin                  (optional) Minimum altitude asl to plot (in km)
  zmax                  (optional) Maximum altitude asl to plot (in km)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v VARIABLE, --variable VARIABLE
                        Name of variable to plot
  --grid                Show grid on the plots
  --dpi DPI             DPI of the output image
  --errorevery ERROREVERY
                        Plot error bar only every x points.
  --html                Create an HTML report.
  -d, --debug           Print dubuging information.
  -s, --silent          Show only warning and error messages.

Converting calibrated HiRELPP files to GEOMS format

HiRELPP files can converted to GEOMS format, using the appropriate method:

from earlinet_reader import hirelpp_files
h = hirelpp_files.HiRElPPFile(<path_to_hirelpp_file>)
h.convert_to_geoms(output_dir, location, affiliation)

The location and affiliation arguments are used to create the correcte GEOMS filename. Location should be a string describing the lidar location e.g. bucharest. Affiliation should be the institue acronym, e.g. inoe. If omitted, the affiliation value will be inferred from HiRELPP properties.

Reporting bugs

If want to report a bug, ask for a new feature, or have an idea for an improvement fell free to contribute it through the bug tracking system.