I work with lots of environmental time series data from stationary instruments. This post describes why you should avoid mixing data and metadata in a single file and instead suggests an easy-to-implement, easy-to-use, maximally compact format consisting of two .csv files linked by unique identifiers.
Continue reading “How NOT to format time series data”Tag: Air Quality
Comparing Air Quality Sites
Air quality continues to be in the news with New York Times articles like these:
- Health Risks of Smoke and Ozone Rise in the West as Wildfire Worsen
- Even Low Levels of Soot Can Be Deadly to Older People, Research Finds
A quick review of web based air quality resources shows a range of sites featuring maps, time series plots and relevant information.
Continue reading “Comparing Air Quality Sites”Methow Valley Air Quality
Mazama Science has released a new set of tutorials demonstrating the use of air quality R packages to investigate data from regulatory monitors and low-cost sensors. This post is just a short summary of what the tutorials cover. We invite anyone interested in wildfire smoke and air quality to run through the tutorials and provide feedback.
Continue reading “Methow Valley Air Quality”Qualitative Display of Air Quality Data
Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.
Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
This post briefly summarizes our thoughts on best practices for designing public-facing data graphics for air quality data. Focus will be on the types of charts we feel are appropriate to use with data (e.g. from low-cost sensors) that may not be as accurate as data collected by monitors using Federal Regulatory or Federal Equivalent Methods (see FRMs/FEMs and Sensors). Visualization types discussed will include:
- maps
- time-series charts
- calendars
- status and forecast tables
Working With Data 