Scott Henderson
Scott Henderson is research scientist in the University of Washington (UW) Department of Earth and Space Sciences and data science fellow at the eScience Institute. His research involves applications of satellite measurements for characterizing cryospheric processes and geohazards, and he enjoys contributing to open source software like Xarray which accelerate scientific research!
Sessions
Xarray provides data structures for multi-dimensional labeled arrays and a toolkit for scalable data analysis on large, complex datasets. Many real-world datasets often have hierarchical or heterogeneous structure, and are best organized through groups of related data arrays. Through xarray.DataTree, the xarray data model now supports opening datasets with a hierarchical structure of groups, such as HDF5 files and Zarr stores. This expanded data model is now general enough to manage data across different scientific disciplines, including geosciences and biosciences. This hands-on tutorial focuses on intermediate and advanced workflows using xarray to analyze real-world hierarchical data.
We illustrate the power and flexibility of a new extension point in Xarray's data model: "custom indexes" that allow Xarray users to neatly handle complex grids, and enables at least one new data model (vector data cubes). We present a whirlwind tour of specific examples to illustrate the power of this feature, and aim to stimulate experimentation during the sprints.