Get annual data for multiple climatic variables — get_annual

Extract annual climate data (temperature and precipitation) for a given set of points or polygons within Europe.

Usage

get_annual_climate(
  coords = NULL,
  climatic_var = "Prcp",
  period = NULL,
  output = "df",
  check_connection = FALSE
)

Arguments

coords: A matrix, data.frame, tibble::tbl_df-class, sf::sf(), or terra::SpatVector() object containing point or polygon coordinates in decimal degrees (lonlat/geographic format, EPSG 4326). Longitude must fall between -40.5 and 75.5 degrees, and latitude between 25.5 and 75.5 degrees. If coords is a matrix, it must have exactly two columns: the first containing longitude and the second containing latitude. If coords is a data.frame or a tbl_df, it must contain at least two columns called lon and lat with longitude and latitude coordinates, respectively.
climatic_var: Character. Climate variables to download ("Tmax", "Tmin", "Tavg", or "Prcp"). Various elements can be concatenated in the vector.
period: Numbers representing years between 1950 and the latest year available. To specify a sequence of years use the format 'start:end' (e.g. YYYY:YYYY, see examples). Various elements can be concatenated in the vector (e.g. c(2000:2005, 2010:2015, 2020))
output: Character. Either "df", which returns a data.frame with daily climatic values for each point or polygon, or "raster", which returns terra::SpatRaster() objects (within a list when more than one climatic variable is downloaded).
check_connection: Logical. Check the connection to the server before attempting data download?

Value

Either:

A data.frame (if output = "df")
A list of terra::SpatRaster() object (if output = "raster")

For precipitation, the function returns total (accumulated) precipitation per year. For temperature variables ('Tmin', 'Tmax', 'Tavg') the function returns the average (i.e. the annual average of minimum and maximum daily temperatures, or the average annual temperature).

References

Pucher, Christoph (2026). Description of Downscaled European Climate Data. figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.33078053.v1

Pucher C. 2023. Description and Evaluation of Downscaled Daily Climate Data Version 4. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22962671.v1

Adam Moreno, Hubert Hasenauer. 2016. Spatial downscaling of European climate data. International Journal of Climatology 36: 1444–1458.

Author

Veronica Cruz-Alonso, Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive()

# Coords as matrix
coords <- matrix(c(-5.36, 37.40), ncol = 2)
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008)  # 2008
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = c(2008, 2010))  # 2008 AND 2010
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008:2010)  # 2008 TO 2010

ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008, climatic_var = "Tmin")

# Coords as data.frame or tbl_df
coords <- as.data.frame(coords) #coords <- tibble::as_tibble(coords)
names(coords) <- c("lon", "lat")  # must have these columns
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008)  # single month

# Coords as sf
coords <- sf::st_as_sf(coords, coords = c("lon", "lat"))
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008)  # single month

# Several points
coords <- matrix(c(-5.36, 37.40, -4.05, 38.10), ncol = 2, byrow = TRUE)
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008, output = "raster")  # raster output

# Multiple climatic variables
coords <- matrix(c(-5.36, 37.40), ncol = 2)
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, climatic_var = c("Tmin", "Tmax"), period = 2008)

## Polygons
coords <- terra::vect("POLYGON ((-5 38, -5 37.5, -4.5 37.5, -4.5 38, -5 38))")

# Return raster
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008, output = "raster")
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, climatic_var = c("Tmin", "Tmax"),
period = 2008, output = "raster") # Multiple climatic variables

# Return dataframe for polygon
ex <- get_annual_climate(coords, period = 2008)
}