COM6018 Data Science with Python

Week 3 - Introducing NumPy

Jon Barker

Overview

• Review of Lab Class 2
• Introducing NumPy
• Preview of Lab Class 3

Review of Lab Class 2

• Atmospheric Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4) concentrations.
• We want to plot the global warming effect of these gases combined.
• Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 so we can't just add the concentrations together.

Global Warming Potential

Global Warming Potential (GWP) - the relative ability of one molecule of a greenhouse gas to contribute to warming.

• GWP for CO2 is defined to be 1.
• GWP for CH4 is 25.

Can convert all greenhouse gases to CO2 equivalent (CO2e) by multiplying by their GWP.

The Problem

Our CO2 and CH4 concentrations are stored in two different datasets from different sources.

Problems:

• The datasets are in different formats.
• The datasets are not aligned in time.
• The datasets do not use consistent naming conventions.
• The datasets may contain missing values.

Tasks

• Reading datasets from their files
• Making sure the data is stored with the correct types
• Selecting and renaming the relevant fields
• Merging the two datasets into one dataset
• Dealing with missing values
• Making new CO2e field by combining existing CO2 and CH4 fields
• Plotting the result and interpreting the plot

Hidden aim of the lab class

Purpose of the lab class was to show

• these tasks are not as straightforward as they sound!
• implementations written in pure Python are slow.
• there are better ways to do this.

Motivation for introducing NumPy and Pandas

The Solution Notebook

Open the Solution Notebook

Introducing NumPy

NumPy is a core Python package for scientific computing that

• provides a powerful N-dimensional array object,
• provides highly optimised linear algebra tools,
• has tight integration with C/C++ and Fortran code,
• is licensed under a BSD license, i.e., it is freely reusable.
• it is very fast.

(Prounced "numb pie" not "numpee" ! Short for 'Numerical Python')

NumPy Tutorial

Link to the NumPy tutorial

Lab Class 3 Preview

• We will use NumPy to do some analysis of the Lab 2 greenhouse gas data.

Lab Class 3

Link to lab class

Next Steps

• Review the Week 2 materials:

  • Review the Lab 2 solution notebook if you have not already done so.
  • Read the Week 2 tutorial on reading data

• Prepare for the Week 3 lab class:

  • Read through the NumPy tutorial.

• Checkout the reading list for Week 3 on Blackboard.