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local_min

Determines the relative minima for a 2-dimensional array.

Prototype

	function local_min (
		x [*][*] : float or double,  
		cyclic   : logical,          
		delta    : numeric           
	)

	return_val [1] :  integer

Arguments

x

A 2-dimensional float or double array. Missing data are allowed and must be indicated by x@_FillValue.

cyclic

Set to False if the data array is not cyclic in x.

Set to True if data are cyclic in the x-axis direction. In this case, the x array should not include the cyclic point.

delta

Tolerance level. If values are within delta of surrounding values it will not be counted as a local min value. Generally, delta=0.0

Return value

Returns the number of relative min values found (nmin). If nmin is greater than zero, then nmin will have three 1-dimensional attribute arrays associated with it:

  1. nmin@xi - this will contain the x-axis indices (e.g. longitudes)
  2. nmin@yi - this will contain the y-axis indices (e.g. latitudes)
  3. nmin@minval - this will contain the minimum values
Each of these 1-dimensional attribute vectors will be of length nmin.

If x is of type float, the return value is float. If x is of type double, the return value is of type double.

Description

This function uses a simple algorithm. It looks at the points surrounding x and checks to see if they are less than the central value. The central value is x - delta.

       1-----------8-----------7
       |           |           |
       |           |           |
       |           |           |
       2-----------0-----------6
       |           |           |
       |           |           |
       |           |           |
       3-----------4-----------5

See Also

local_max, local_min_1d, local_max_1d

Examples

Example 1

Application example.

Example 2

Let x be a 2-dimensional array with dimension sizes nlat = 64 and mlon = 128 with coordinate variables "lat" and "lon". The data are cyclic (cyclic=True). Do not use any tolerance [delta = 0.0] 

    nmin = local_min(x, True, 0.0)
If nmin = 3, then the attribute vectors might look like: 
    nmin@xi     = (/  3,     57,      90 /)
    nmin@yi     = (/ 21,     38,      52 /)
    nmin@minval = (/ 35.0,  -14.3,   -23.9 /)
If it is desired to write this to, say, an ascii file, then: 

   ncol   = 3
   data   = new ( (/nmin,ncol/) , typeof(x) )
   data(:,0) = nmin@xi
   data(:,1) = nmin@yi
   data(:,2) = nmin@minval
   
   opt = True
   opt@fout = "sample.txt"
   write_matrix( data, ncol + "f10.2", opt)
The output file ["sample.txt"] would look like: 
      3.00     21.00     35.00
     57.00     38.00    -14.30
     90.00     52.00    -23.90