facebook twitter rss feeds

Short Course Registration Information

AMS Short Course on Intermediate Python: Using NumPy, SciPy, and Matplotlib

Saturday–Sunday, 5–6 January 2013

      This course builds upon the short course A Beginner’s Course to Using Python in Climate and Meteorology, and is geared toward those who already have some basic experience writing Python programs and understand Python control structures such as for loops and conditional statements.  This intermediate course will show how to use the Numerical Python/Scientific Python (NumPy/SciPy) and Matplotlib libraries for data analysis, modeling, and visualization.  Detailed aspects of creating and formatting 1-D line and bar charts, pie charts, 2-D contour and surface plots, and 3-D plots will be covered, along with the basemap module for plotting geographically referenced data on the globe.  Spectral analysis (FFTs) using NumPy will be demonstrated, as will solving matrices and systems of equations, and basic statistical operations.  Methods of slicing and indexing NumPy arrays will be covered, as will input/output of NumPy arrays and reading data from NetCDF and GRIB file formats.  A capstone exercise applying Python and NumPy arrays for solving the shallow-water equations and using matplotlib to visualize the results will conclude the short course (no prior modeling experience is assumed).

      Students without Python experience are encouraged to sign-up for the two-day Beginner's Python course, while those with advanced knowledge should sign-up for one or both of the one-day Advanced courses (these courses have separate registration).

      The course format consists of two full-days of discussion and hands-on experience programming with Python and using the NumPy/SciPy and Matplotlib modules.  All attendees will need to bring a laptop (with power adapter) that has Python, SciPy, NumPy, Matplotlib, and Basemap installed on it.  Instructions will be emailed to registered attendees before the course begins on how to install Python and the other libraries needed.

       The instructor for the course is Alex DeCaria, a professor of meteorology at Millersville University.  He may be contacted for more information at (717) 871-4739 or alex.decaria@millersville.edu.