Create Table from ESRL Climate Index Time Series at URL

Creates and populates a table of climate index values parsed from NOAA ESRL climate index time series data downloaded from a URL.

Command line syntax

ESRLClimateIndicesUrlToArcGISTable_GeoEco <url> <table> <field>

Parameters

Expression	Explanation
<url>	URL to a text file containing climate index data in ERSL PSD time series format. http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/ClimateIndices/List/ contains a large table that lists the available climate index data produced by ERSL. The left column contains hyperlinks to the datasets and the right column contains the descriptions of the datasets. Find the dataset you are interested in, extract the URL from the hyperlink, and provide it to this tool. For example, if you are interested in the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), scroll down the table until you reach ONI in the left column. Click on the ONI hyperlink to bring up the page http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlation/oni.data. Copy/paste that URL from your browser.
<table>	Table to create and populate. The table will have four fields: IndexDate (DATE) - the date of the first day of the month and year of the climate index value (e.g. 1-March-1960). IndexYear (LONG) - the year of the climate index value (e.g. 1990). IndexMonth (LONG) - the month of the climate index value, ranging from 1 to 12. Value (DOUBLE) - the index value for that month and year. The name of this field is specified by the climate index value field parameter, and need not be "Value". If the output table is a dBASE table (a DBF file), the missing_value parsed from the input data will be used to represent "no data is available". For other types of tables, a database NULL will represent "no data is available". The second two fields store the same data as the first field but are present for your convenience, in case you prefer the year and month broken out as integers. The rows will be inserted in ascending date order and all 12 months will be included for every year. If these months occur in the future they will have the missing_value or NULL, as described above.
<field>	Name of the field to receive the climate index value.

Expression

Explanation

<url>

URL to a text file containing climate index data in ERSL PSD time series format.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/ClimateIndices/List/ contains a large table that lists the available climate index data produced by ERSL. The left column contains hyperlinks to the datasets and the right column contains the descriptions of the datasets. Find the dataset you are interested in, extract the URL from the hyperlink, and provide it to this tool.

For example, if you are interested in the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), scroll down the table until you reach ONI in the left column. Click on the ONI hyperlink to bring up the page http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlation/oni.data. Copy/paste that URL from your browser.

<table>

Table to create and populate. The table will have four fields:

IndexDate (DATE) - the date of the first day of the month and year of the climate index value (e.g. 1-March-1960).

IndexYear (LONG) - the year of the climate index value (e.g. 1990).

IndexMonth (LONG) - the month of the climate index value, ranging from 1 to 12.

Value (DOUBLE) - the index value for that month and year. The name of this field is specified by the climate index value field parameter, and need not be "Value". If the output table is a dBASE table (a DBF file), the missing_value parsed from the input data will be used to represent "no data is available". For other types of tables, a database NULL will represent "no data is available".

The second two fields store the same data as the first field but are present for your convenience, in case you prefer the year and month broken out as integers.

The rows will be inserted in ascending date order and all 12 months will be included for every year. If these months occur in the future they will have the missing_value or NULL, as described above.

<field>

Name of the field to receive the climate index value.

Scripting syntax

ESRLClimateIndicesUrlToArcGISTable_GeoEco (url, table, field)

Parameters

Expression	Explanation
Input URL (Required)	URL to a text file containing climate index data in ERSL PSD time series format. http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/ClimateIndices/List/ contains a large table that lists the available climate index data produced by ERSL. The left column contains hyperlinks to the datasets and the right column contains the descriptions of the datasets. Find the dataset you are interested in, extract the URL from the hyperlink, and provide it to this tool. For example, if you are interested in the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), scroll down the table until you reach ONI in the left column. Click on the ONI hyperlink to bring up the page http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlation/oni.data. Copy/paste that URL from your browser.
Output table (Required)	Table to create and populate. The table will have four fields: IndexDate (DATE) - the date of the first day of the month and year of the climate index value (e.g. 1-March-1960). IndexYear (LONG) - the year of the climate index value (e.g. 1990). IndexMonth (LONG) - the month of the climate index value, ranging from 1 to 12. Value (DOUBLE) - the index value for that month and year. The name of this field is specified by the climate index value field parameter, and need not be "Value". If the output table is a dBASE table (a DBF file), the missing_value parsed from the input data will be used to represent "no data is available". For other types of tables, a database NULL will represent "no data is available". The second two fields store the same data as the first field but are present for your convenience, in case you prefer the year and month broken out as integers. The rows will be inserted in ascending date order and all 12 months will be included for every year. If these months occur in the future they will have the missing_value or NULL, as described above.
Climate index value field (Required)	Name of the field to receive the climate index value.