Build netCDF files of the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) national gridded climate data.

makeNetCDF_file builds two netCDF files containing Australian climate data.

Usage

makeNetCDF_file(
  ncdfFilename = file.path(getwd(), "AWAP.nc"),
  ncdfSolarFilename = file.path(getwd(), "AWAP_solar.nc"),
  updateFrom = as.Date("1900-01-01", "%Y-%m-%d"),
  updateTo = as.Date(Sys.Date() - 2, "%Y-%m-%d"),
  workingFolder = getwd(),
  keepFiles = FALSE,
  compressionLevel = 5,
  urlPrecip = getURLs()$precip,
  urlTmin = getURLs()$Tmin,
  urlTmax = getURLs()$Tmax,
  urlVprp = getURLs()$vprp,
  urlSolarrad = getURLs()$solarrad
)

Arguments

ncdfFilename: is a file path (as string) and name to the netCDF file. The default file name and path is file.path(getwd(),'AWAP.nc').
ncdfSolarFilename: is the file path (as string) and name to the netCDF file. The default namefile and path file.path(getwd(),'AWAP_solar.nc').
updateFrom: is a date string specifying the start date for the AWAP data. If ncdfFilename and ncdfSolarFilename are specified and exist, then the netCDF grids will be updated with new data from updateFrom. To update the files from the end of the last day in the file set updateFrom=NA. The default is "1900-1-1".
updateTo: is a date string specifying the end date for the AWAP data. If ncdfFilename and ncdfSolarFilename are specified and exist, then the netCDF grids will be updated with new data to updateFrom. The default is two days ago as YYYY-MM-DD.
workingFolder: is the file path (as string) in which to download the AWAP grid files. The default is getwd().
keepFiles: is a logical scalar to keep the downloaded AWAP grid files. The default is FALSE.
compressionLevel: is the netCDF compression level between 1 (low) and 9 (high), and NA for no compression. Note, data extracion runtime may slightly increase with the level of compression. The default is 5.
urlPrecip: URL to the folder containing the AWAP daily precipittaion grids. The default is from getURLs()$precip.
urlTmin: URL to the folder containing the AWAP daily minimum temperature grids. The default is from getURLs()$Tmin.
urlTmax: URL to the folder containing the AWAP daily maximum temperature grids. The default is from getURLs()$Tmax.
urlVprp: URL to the folder containing the AWAP daily vapour pressure grids. The default is from getURLs()$vprp.
urlSolarrad: URL to the folder containing the AWAP daily solar radiation grids. The default is from getURLs()$solarrad.

Value

A list variable containing the full file name to the AWAP data and the AWAP solar data.

Details

makeNetCDF_file creates two netCDF files of daily climate data.

One of the netCDF files contains precipitation, minimum daily temperature, maximum daily temperature and vappour pressure. It should span from 1/1/1900 to today and requires ~20GB of hard-drive space (using default compression). The second netCDF file contains the solar radiation and started from 1/1/1990 and be ~24GB and spatial gaps are infilled using a 3x3 moving average repeated 3 times. To minimise the runtime in extracting data, both files should be stored locally and not on a network drive. Also, building the files requires installation of 7zip.

The climate data is sourced from the Bureau of Meteorology Australian Water Availability Project (http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/. For details see Jones et al. (2009).

The output from this function is required for all data extraction functions within this package and must be ran prior.

The function can be used to build netCDF files from stratch or to update existng netCDF files previously derived from this function. To not build or update a variable, set its respective URL to NA.

References

David A. Jones, William Wang and Robert Fawcett, (2009), High-quality spatial climate data-sets for Australia, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, 58 , p233-248.

Examples

# The example shows how to build the netCDF data cubes.
# For an additional example see \url{https://github.com/peterson-tim-j/AWAPer/blob/master/README.md}
#---------------------------------------

# Set dates for building netCDFs and extracting data from 15 to 5 days ago.
startDate = as.Date(Sys.Date()-15,"%Y-%m-%d")
endDate = as.Date(Sys.Date()-5,"%Y-%m-%d")

# Set names for netCDF files (in the system temp. directory).
ncdfFilename = tempfile(fileext='.nc')
ncdfSolarFilename = tempfile(fileext='.nc')

# \donttest{
# Build netCDF grids for all data but only over the defined time period.
file.names = makeNetCDF_file(ncdfFilename=ncdfFilename,
             ncdfSolarFilename=ncdfSolarFilename,
             updateFrom=startDate, updateTo=endDate)
#> Starting to build both netCDF files.
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP precip. grid
#> ... Getting grid gemoetry from file.
#> ... Deleting /home/runner/work/AWAPer/AWAPer/docs/reference/precip.20000101.grid.gz
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP tmin grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP tmax grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP vapour pressure grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP solar grid
#> ... Getting grid gemoetry from file.
#> ... Deleting /home/runner/work/AWAPer/AWAPer/docs/reference/solarrad.20000101.grid.gz
#> ... Building AWAP netcdf file.
#>     NetCDF data will be updated from  2025-11-23  to  2025-12-03
#> ... Downloading non-solar data and importing to netcdf file:
#>     NetCDF Solar data will be updated from  2025-11-23  to  2025-12-03
#> ... Downloading solar data and importing to netcdf file:
#> Data construction FINISHED.
#> Total run time (DD:HH:MM:SS): 00:00:00:57

# Now, to demonstrate updating the netCDF grids to one day ago, rerun with
# the same file names but \code{updateFrom=NA}.
file.names = makeNetCDF_file(ncdfFilename=ncdfFilename,
             ncdfSolarFilename=ncdfSolarFilename,
             updateFrom=NA)
#> Starting to update both netCDF files.
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP precip. grid
#> ... Getting grid gemoetry from file.
#> ... Deleting /home/runner/work/AWAPer/AWAPer/docs/reference/precip.20000101.grid.gz
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP tmin grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP tmax grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP vapour pressure grid
#> ... Testing downloading of AWAP solar grid
#> ... Getting grid gemoetry from file.
#> ... Deleting /home/runner/work/AWAPer/AWAPer/docs/reference/solarrad.20000101.grid.gz
#>     NetCDF data will be updated from  2025-12-03  to  2025-12-07
#> ... Downloading non-solar data and importing to netcdf file:
#>     NetCDF Solar data will be updated from  2025-12-03  to  2025-12-07
#> ... Downloading solar data and importing to netcdf file:
#> Data construction FINISHED.
#> Total run time (DD:HH:MM:SS): 00:00:00:31

 # Remove temp. files
 unlink(ncdfFilename)
 unlink(ncdfSolarFilename)
# }