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Sensor Configurations

Sensor Configurations#

DISDRODB tailor the processing of the disdrometer measurements according to the instrument type and characteristics.

Currently, disdrodb enables to process data acquired from the OTT Parsivel (OTT_Parsivel), OTT Parsivel2 (OTT_Parsivel2), Thies Laser Precipitation Monitor (Thies_LPM) and RD-80 (RD_80) disdrometers.

The sensor configurations already implemented can be listed by typing the command:

import disdrodb

disdrodb.available_sensor_names()

The sensor configurations are stored within the disdrodb software disdrodb.l0.configs directory. In this directory, the name of the subdirectories correspond to the sensor_name.

For each sensor, the following list of configuration YAML files are required:

📁 disdrodb/
├── 📁 l0 : Contains the software to produce the DISDRODB L0 products
├── 📁 configs : Contains the specifications of various types of disdrometers
├── 📁 <sensor_name> : e.g. OTT_Parsivel, OTT_Parsivel2, Thies_LPM, RD_80
├── 📜 *.yml : YAML files defining sensor characteristics (e.g. diameter and velocity bins)
├── 📜 bins_diameter.yml : Information related to sensor diameter bins
├── 📜 bins_velocity.yml : Information related to sensor velocity bins
├── 📜 raw_data_format.yml : Information related to the variables logged by the sensor
├── 📜 l0a_encodings.yml : Variables encodings for the L0A product
├── 📜 l0b_encodings.yml : Variables encodings for the L0B product
├── 📜 l0b_cf_attrs.yml : Variables CF attributes for the L0B product

If you want to add a new sensor configuration, you will need to copy the YAML files of one of the implemented sensors, and adapt the specifications.

Once you added a new sensor configuration, check the validity with the following command:

from disdrodb.l0.check_configs import check_sensor_configs

sensor_name = "OTT_Parsivel"  # Change with your sensor_name
check_sensor_configs(sensor_name)

Here below we detail further information related to each of the configuration YAML files.

Sensor diameter bins#

The bins_diameter.yml file contains the information related to the drop diameter bins. Within the YAML file, the bins center, width and lower and upper bounds must be specified.

Sensor velocity bins#

The bins_velocity.yml file contains the information related to the drop fall velocity bins. Within the YAML file, the bins center, width and lower and upper bounds must be specified. If the sensor (i.e. impact disdrometers) does not measure the drop fall velocity, the YAML files must be defined empty!

Sensor logged variables#

The raw_data_format.yml file contains the “numeric” information related to the variables logged by the sensor. The following keys should be specified for each numeric variable:

  • n_digits: the number of digits logged by the sensor (excluding the comma)

  • n_characters: the number of characters (digits plus comma and sign)

  • n_decimals: the number of decimals digits (right side of the comma)

  • n_naturals: the number of natural digits (left side of the comma)

  • data_range: the data range of the values logged by the sensor

  • nan_flags: the value or list of values that flag NaN values

  • field_number: the field number reported in the documentation

The null value should be added for character variables or when the value can not be specified.

During the DISDRODB L0 processing:

  • the data_range, if specified, will be used to set invalid values to NaN

  • the nan_flags values, if specified, will be converted to NaN

The n_digits, n_characters, n_decimals and n_naturals information is used to infer the raw files header when it is unknown. See usage of the infer_column_names function in the reader_preparation.ipynb Jupyter Notebook.

For the variables which values do not depend only on the time dimension, it is necessary to specify 2 additional keys: n_values and dimension_order

The n_values key corresponds to the total number of variable values in the array. For example, for the precipitation spectrum of the OTT Parsivel sensor, characterized by 32 diameter and 32 velocity bins, n_values = 1024 (32*32).

The dimension_order controls how the precipitation spectrum counts logged by the sensor have to be reshaped into a 2D matrix.

For example, the OTT Parsivel logs the precipitation spectrum by first providing the drop count in each bin diameters for the velocity bin 1, then for velocity bin 2 and so on. The flattened array looks like [v1d1 ... v1d32, v2d1, ..., v2d32, ...] and therefore dimension_order = ["velocity_bin_center", "diameter_bin_center"]

The Thies LPM logs the precipitation spectrum by first providing the drop count in each velocity bin for the diameter bin 1, then for diameter bin 2 and so on. The flattened array looks like [v1d1 ... v20d1, v1d2, ..., v20d2, ...] and therefore dimension_order = ["diameter_bin_center", "velocity_bin_center"]

DISDRODB L0B variables attributes#

The l0b_cf_attrs.yml file defines the DISDRODB L0B netCDF variable CF attributes. The variables defined in this file must be a subset of the variables listed in the raw_data_format.yml file. Only the variables defined in the l0b_cf_attrs.yml file are used in the other l0*.yml files. The expected keys for each variable are: long_name, units and description. Please read the Climate and Forecast Conventions guidelines for long_name and units for more information.

DISDRODB L0A encodings#

The l0a_encodings.yml file lists the variables that are allowed to be saved into the DISDRODB L0A Apache Parquet format. The file also specifies the type (i.e. integer/floating precision/string) each variable is saved in the Apache Parquet binary format. In addition to the specified variables, also the following variables are allowed to be saved into the DISDRODB L0A files:

  • the time column (in UTC)

  • the latitude and longitude columns if the disdrometer station is mobile.

DISDRODB L0B encodings#

The l0b_encodings.yml file lists the variables that are allowed to be saved into the DISDRODB L0B netCDF4 format.

For each variable, you need to specify the compression options, the data type, the _FillValue (to convert the NaN values when saving arrays to an integer data type) and the chunk size across the time (and diameter and/or velocity) dimensions. The specified key values are used to define, for each variable, the specific netCDF4 encodings.

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