TraCESahulMisc provides helper functions, workflows, and datasets for downloading, importing, processing, and analysing downscaled TraCE-Sahul palaeoclimate data in R. It supports a complete pipeline: acquiring (an example of) raw TraCE-Sahul files, importing them as terra::SpatRaster objects with correct metadata, generating monthly, seasonal, or annual summaries, deriving BIOCLIM variables, and pairing environmental rasters with fossil or observational point data.
A comparison between the downscaled TraCE-Sahul and raw TraCE-21 data. The top row shows the effect of the downscaling on mean annual temperature, while the bottom row shows the effect on mean annual precipitation.
The package was designed specifically for researchers working with the TraCE-Sahul climate reconstructions, with the aim of automating the aggregation of palaeo-environmental data, and time-series environmental analyses across the Sahul region to be used in species distribution modelling.
The easiest way to install the package is to use remotes as below.
remotes::install_github("scbrown86/TraCESahulMisc", build_vignettes = FALSE)The package contains a pre-built vignette that should not be re-built on install so please make sure you set build_vignettes = FALSE when installing.
The package constains a small vignette showing some of the functionality.
It can be viewed here, or in RStudio as below
vignette("TraCESahulMisc_workflow")The package helps to automate some basic tasks that are common with palaeo climate reconstructions. It has been built specifically to work the TraCE-Sahul dataset, but may work with other datasets provided they have a time attribute (see the Terra package for details)
- Download an example TraCE-Sahul climate dataset.
- Import multi-layer NetCDF files as annotated
SpatRasterobjects. - Summarise TraCE datasets to monthly, seasonal, or annual climatologies.
- Compute BIOCLIM variables.
- Pair climate rasters with fossil or observational point data.
- Includes two example datasets.
See the package vignette for a full worked example on using the dataset
MIT License.