openair (version 0.9-2)

importTraj: Import pre-calculated HYSPLIT 96-hour back trajectories

Description

Function to import pre-calculated back trajectories using the NOAA HYSPLIT model. The trajectories have been calculated for a select range of locations which will expand in time. They cover the last 20 years or so and can be used together with other openair functions.

Usage

importTraj(site = "london", year = 2009, local = NA)

Arguments

site

Site code of the network site to import e.g. "london". Only one site can be imported at a time. The following sites are typically available from 2000-2012, although some UK ozone sites go back to 1988 (code, location, lat, lon, year):

year

Year or years to import. To import a sequence of years from 1990 to 2000 use year = 1990:2000. To import several specfic years use year = c(1990, 1995, 2000) for example.

local

Used for testing purposes on a local file system.

Value

• Returns a data frame with pre-calculated back trajectories.

Details

This function imports pre-calculated back trajectories using the HYSPLIT trajectory model (Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php). Back trajectories provide some very useful information for air quality data analysis. However, while they are commonly calculated by researchers it is generally difficult for them to be calculated on a routine basis and used easily. In addition, the availability of back trajectories over several years can be very useful, but again difficult to calculate.

Trajectories are run at 3-hour intervals and stored in yearly files (see below). The trajectories are started at ground-level (10m) and propagated backwards in time.

These trajectories have been calculated using the Global NOAA-NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data archives. The global data are on a latitude-longitude grid (2.5 degree). Note that there are many different meteorological data sets that can be used to run HYSPLIT e.g. including ECMWF data. However, in order to make it practicable to run and store trajectories for many years and sites, the NOAA-NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data is most useful. In addition, these archives are available for use widely, which is not the case for many other data sets e.g. ECMWF. HYSPLIT calculated trajectories based on archive data may be distributed without permission (see http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT_agreement.php). For those wanting, for example, to consider higher resolution meteorological data sets it may be better to run the trajectories separately.

We are extremely grateful to NOAA for making HYSPLIT available to produce back trajectories in an open way. We ask that you cite HYSPLIT if used in published work.

The files consist of the following information:

[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]

See Also

trajPlot, importAURN, importKCL,importADMS, importSAQN

Examples

## import trajectory data for London in 2009
mytraj <- importTraj(site = "london", year = 2009)

## combine with measurements
theData <- importAURN(site = "kc1", year = 2009)
mytraj <- merge(mytraj, theData, by = "date")