Processing and plotting tools for users of ADAQ software (NAME, AQUM, etc.)

Installation Guide

ADAQ Python requires very little setting up. However, in order to be able to use ADAQ Python it is necessary to have installed the MOSciTools suite of python packages. To load these at the Met Office type:

module load scitools

In addition, to be able to run the examples and do the exercises in the user guide you need to tell ADAQ Python where the sample data is stored. To do this open :mod:config (see adaqcode/config.py) and modify the SAMPLE_DATADIR to provide the location of the sample data.

Note

On all computers the forward slash '/' should be used to separate directories. Setting Up Mapping in Cartopy

Note

Note that Cartopy is already configured to find the map data on the Met Office Scientific desktop so users of those computers can ignore the following instructions.

ADAQ python uses mapping data from Natural Earth (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/). The python package Cartopy, which is part of the MOSciTools suite of packages, will download map data for plotting as required. However, if your computer is not connected to internet permanently or you are likely to plot a large number of maps the maps can be downloaded from Natural Earth and saved on your computer. There are two ways to tell Cartopy how to find your downloaded maps.

    If you can access the cartopy installation then you can create a siteconfig.py file with the cartopy install which sets the config key 'pre_existing_data_dir' to the location of the map data.

    If you can't access the cartopy installation then it is possible to make use of site.getusersitepackages (see ​https://docs.python.org/2/library/site.html#site.getusersitepackages) and add a file called cartopy_userconfig.py there. This file should contain:

    def update_config(config_dict):
        config_dict[‘pre_existing_data_dir’] = ‘/path/to/my/NaturalEarthFiles’