Introduction

climateStability is a small set of R-based tools for generating climate stability estimates based on time slices of climate data.

Calculating Stability

First, you give the deviationThroughTime function the location of a folder containing time slice data (as ASCII rasters) for a single variable, such as that produced by PaleoView (Fordham, et al. 2017, Ecography), and the time elapsed between slices. It will calculate the average standard deviation over time for each cell. Note that deviationThroughTime will use all the raster files in the given folder in order, so be careful that it only contains the files from which you want to calculate stability. You may want to also verify that R loads the files in the correct order. That is, verify that your files are named in such a way that they are in order when read in.

The function accommodates datasets with even temporal intervals, as well as uneven intervals. First, here is an example with a dataset in which 1,000 years has elapsed between each raster layer.

# deviationThroughTime using even time slices
precipDeviation <- deviationThroughTime(variableDirectory = "inst/extdata/precipfiles/",
                                        timeSlicePeriod = 1000)
temperatureDeviation <- deviationThroughTime(variableDirectory = "inst/extdata/tempfiles/",
                                             timeSlicePeriod = 1000)

Here is an example with a dataset for which there are uneven time intervals between rasters (every 1,000 years between 1kybp to 5 kybp, and then rasters for 10kybp, 15kybp, and 21kybp). In this case, timeSlicePeriod can take a vector specifying the time elapsed between slices. NOTE: make sure the time interval vector is in the same order as your time slices. There should be one fewer timeSlicePeriod items than the number of climate slice files.

# deviationThroughTime using uneven time slices
unevenPrecipDeviation <- deviationThroughTime(variableDirectory = "inst/extdata/precipfilesUneven/", 
                                              timeSlicePeriod = c(1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, 5000, 5000, 6000))
unevenTemperatureDeviation <- deviationThroughTime(variableDirectory = "inst/extdata/tempfilesUneven/",
                                                   timeSlicePeriod = c(1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, 5000, 5000, 6000))

You have been provided with two pre-calculated deviation-through-time estimates from Owens and Guralnick. Submitted, Biodiversity Informatics. These were calculated from 100-year climate means for 20 1,000-year time slices from 21 kbp to 1 kbp using data from the TRaCE 21k climate experiment, run in the CCSM 3.0 climate model. These layers will be used to illustrate the remaining climateStability package functions.

Let’s load them into the R environment.

precipDeviation <- terra::rast(system.file("inst/extdata/precipDeviation.asc", package = "climateStability"))

## Error: [rast] filename is empty. Provide a valid filename

temperatureDeviation <- terra::rast(system.file("inst/extdata/temperatureDeviation.asc", package = "climateStability"))

## Error: [rast] filename is empty. Provide a valid filename

The next step is scaling the deviation through time estimate from 0 to 1, and then take the inverse of the result. This how you estimate stability for a given climate variable, per Owens and Guralnick, 2019. Biodiversity Informatics.

precipStability <- stabilityCalc(precipDeviation)

## Error in is(rasterForCalculation, "SpatRaster"): object 'precipDeviation' not found

tempStability <- stabilityCalc(temperatureDeviation)

## Error in is(rasterForCalculation, "SpatRaster"): object 'temperatureDeviation' not found

Finally, to estimate climatic stability, multiply the individual climate variable stability estimates together.

climateStability <- rescale0to1(precipStability * tempStability)

## Error in is(rasterForCalculation, "SpatRaster"): object 'precipStability' not found

Plots showing stability

These data can be visualized either as rasters or as line graphs showing the relationship between latitude and stability.

plot(precipStability, main = "Relative Precipitation Stability")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'precipStability' not found

plot(rangeBuilder::gshhs, add = T)

## Error in polypath(x = mcrds[, 1], y = mcrds[, 2], border = border, col = col, : plot.new has not been called yet

plot(tempStability, main = "Relative Temperature Stability")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'tempStability' not found

plot(rangeBuilder::gshhs, add = T)

## Error in polypath(x = mcrds[, 1], y = mcrds[, 2], border = border, col = col, : plot.new has not been called yet

plot(climateStability, main = "Overall Relative Climate Stability")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'climateStability' not found

plot(rangeBuilder::gshhs, add = T)

## Error in polypath(x = mcrds[, 1], y = mcrds[, 2], border = border, col = col, : plot.new has not been called yet

#Calculate mean values at rasters
plot(latitudinalMean(precipStability), main = "Precipitation Stability by Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'precipStability' not found

plot(latitudinalMean(tempStability), main = "Temperature Stability by Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'tempStability' not found

plot(latitudinalMean(climateStability), main = "Climate Stability by Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'climateStability' not found

#Calculate mean values at rasters
plot(absLatitudinalMean(precipStability), main = "Precipitation Stability by Absolute Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'precipStability' not found

plot(absLatitudinalMean(tempStability), main = "Temperature Stability by Absolute Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'tempStability' not found

plot(absLatitudinalMean(climateStability), main = "Climate Stability by Absolute Latitude", 
     ylab = "Relative Stability", type = "l")

## Error in h(simpleError(msg, call)): error in evaluating the argument 'x' in selecting a method for function 'plot': object 'climateStability' not found