Leap years #20
-
|
Question: how does WBM handle leap years? Specifically, does it have 366 days on leap years? And if it does, what is the "middle of the year" date that is reported in the yearly files? July 1 like all the other years, or another day like July 2? Is there any way to change these settings at all? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
Replies: 2 comments
-
|
How "WBM handles leap years" probably deserves a more nuanced response than I can provide, which is "it does". I will say that it does appear that when output is aggregated to yearly data - it always associates the data with the corresponding timestamp of midnight on July 1. This is a bit unconventional, and needs to be considered when trying to align WBM output with other data (such as observational data) that will often be associated with a Timestamp at the end (or beginning) of the year. Also - don't know how or if its possible to change the timestamp associated with annual (or monthly) output. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
How "WBM handles leap years" answer/comment - This is how WBM handles different calendars of the input datasets (e.g. temperature, precipitation, etc.) -
Yearly time series data time stamp of July 1: This is done (in RIMS.pm module) simply for data graphing purposes so that the data is plotted somewhere near the middle of each time series year on the time-axis of a graph (e.g. MS Excel). The actual date portion of day/hour/seconds units is meaningless. The year value is the only one that matters for any data use or processing. Hope it helps. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
How "WBM handles leap years" answer/comment -
WBM runs with two calendar options: (1) Standard (default) which can be specified in the "MT_Code_Name =>{...}" block as "Calendar=>'standard'" or "Calendar=>366", and (2) No leap year calendar, as "Calendar=>365".
This is how WBM handles different calendars of the input datasets (e.g. temperature, precipitation, etc.) -
a) Input in standard calendar: as it is.
b) Input is no leap calendar: WBM Feb 29 takes Feb 28. So, in WBM leap years Feb 28 is used twice.
c) Input is in 360 calendar: WBM day 31 of a 31-day month takes day 30 of the input. So, WBM takes day 30 twice in 31 day months.