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nc = read('netcdf.nc')
print('Variables: ', variables(nc))
print('Global attributes: ', global_attributes(nc)) |
Geopoints
Geopoints is the ASCII format used by Metview to handle spatially irregular data (e.g. observations). There are a number of variations on the format, but the default one is a 6-column layout. The columns do not have to be aligned, but there must be at least one whitespace character between each entry.
This example shows a geopoints file containing dry bulb temperature at 2m (PARAMETER = 12004).
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#GEOPARAMETER = 12004lat long level date time value#DATA36.15 -5.35 0 19970810 1200 300.934.58 32.98 0 19970810 1200 301.641.97 21.65 0 19970810 1200 299.445.03 7.73 0 19970810 1200 29445.67 9.7 0 19970810 1200 302.244.43 9.93 0 19970810 1200 293.4 |
If you have observation data which you wish to import into Metview, Geopoints is probably the best format because:
- it is easy to write data into this format
- Metview has lots of functions to manipulate data in this format
Variants of the format allow 2-dimensional variables to be stored (e.g. U/V or speed/direction wind components), and another variant stores only lat, lon and value for a more compact file.
Examine the supplied geopoints.gpt icon to confirm the contents of the file. The columns are sortable. You may wish to open the file in an external text editor to see exactly what it looks like.
Visualise the icon. The visdef used for geopoints is Symbol Plotting, and its default behaviour is to plot the actual numbers on the map.