Class to Store Meteorological Data

This class stores meteorological data. For objects created with read.met(), the data slot will contain all the columns within the original file (with some guesses as to units) in addition to several calculated quantities such as u and v, which are velocities in m/s (not the km/h stored in typical data files), and which obey the oceanographic convention that u>0 is a wind towards the east.

Slots

data

As with all oce objects, the data slot for met objects is a list containing the main data for the object.

metadata

As with all oce objects, the metadata slot for met objects is a list containing information about the data or about the object itself.

processingLog

As with all oce objects, the processingLog slot for met objects is a list with entries describing the creation and evolution of the object. The contents are updated by various oce functions to keep a record of processing steps. Object summaries and processingLogShow() both display the log.

Modifying slot contents

Although the [[<- operator may permit modification of the contents of met objects (see [[<-,met-method), it is better to use oceSetData() and oceSetMetadata(), because those functions save an entry in the processingLog that describes the change.

Retrieving slot contents

The full contents of the data and metadata slots of a met object may be retrieved in the standard R way using slot(). For example slot(o,"data") returns the data slot of an object named o, and similarly slot(o,"metadata") returns the metadata slot.

The slots may also be obtained with the [[,met-method operator, as e.g. o[["data"]] and o[["metadata"]], respectively.

The [[,met-method operator can also be used to retrieve items from within the data and metadata slots. For example, o[["temperature"]] can be used to retrieve temperature from an object containing that quantity. The rule is that a named quantity is sought first within the object's metadata slot, with the data slot being checked only if metadata does not contain the item. This [[ method can also be used to get certain derived quantities, if the object contains sufficient information to calculate them. For example, an object that holds (practical) salinity, temperature and pressure, along with longitude and latitude, has sufficient information to compute Absolute Salinity, and so o[["SA"]] will yield the calculated Absolute Salinity.

It is also possible to find items more directly, using oceGetData() and oceGetMetadata(), but neither of these functions can retrieve derived items.

See also

Other classes provided by oce: adp-class, adv-class, argo-class, bremen-class, cm-class, coastline-class, ctd-class, lisst-class, lobo-class, oce-class, odf-class, rsk-class, sealevel-class, section-class, topo-class, windrose-class, xbt-class

Other things related to met data: [[,met-method, [[<-,met-method, as.met(), download.met(), met, plot,met-method, read.met(), subset,met-method, summary,met-method

Author

Dan Kelley