Climate: An R package to access free in-situ meteorological and hydrological datasets for environmental assessment

Abstract

Freely available and reliable meteorological datasets are highly demanded in many scientific and business applications. However, the structure of publicly available databases is often difficult to follow, especially for users who only deal with this kind of dataset on occasion. The "climate" R package aims to fill this gap with an easy-to-use interface for downloading global meteorological data in a fast and consistent way. The package provides access to different sources of in-situ meteorological data, including the Ogimet website, atmospheric vertical sounding gathered at the University of Wyoming's webpage, and hydrological and meteorological measurements collected by the Institute of Meteorology andWater Management-National Research Institute (i.e., Polish Met Office). This article also provides a quick overview of the key functionalities available within the climate R package, and gives examples of an efficient and tidy workflow of meteorological data within the R based environment. The automation procedures included in the packages allow one to download data in a user-defined time resolution (from hourly to annual), for a user-defined time span, and for a specified group of stations or countries. The package also contains metadata, including a list of available stations, their geospatial information, and measurement descriptions with their units. Finally, the obtained datasets can be processed in R or exported to external tools (e.g., spreadsheets or GIS software).