Can I make a surface or colormap with latitude, longitude, and concentration using MATLAB? (photo example)

Hi there,

I am assisting in some research based on climate model outputs. I have datasets for various values (e.g. CO2 concentration, water vapor concentration) at various latitude and longitudes (of systematic intervals). I also need to create similar colored maps for latitude vs. altitude. [Picture examples are linked to below.] I basically have the datasets in txt files that are about a 20 x 20 matrix based on the lat/long intervals.

Horizontal - latitude / longitude / concentration figure: http://www.aaronburdick.com/Other/Randomfor-personal-use/18570968_kxb4jj#1434287232_qFJmFCR

Vertical - latitude / altitude / concentration figure: http://www.aaronburdick.com/Other/Randomfor-personal-use/18570968_kxb4jj#1434287234_sqBQmtW

Can I create these graphs using MATLAB? How should I go about doing this?

Thank you so much!

Aaron

Answer 1

[Patrick Kalita]

Have you looked at the pcolor function? Here's an example:

[x,y,z] = peaks;
pcolor(x,y,z);

Based on your example pictures, you may also want to do this:

shading interp

The "vertical" picture also appears to have some contour lines:

[x,y,z] = peaks;
pcolor(x,y,z);
shading interp
hold on
contour(x,y,z, [-2, 2], 'EdgeColor', 'k');

Other commands you might want to look at: clabel, colorbar.

[Aaron Burdick]

Thanks Patrick! I tried using the pcolor function. It changes my X (long) and Y (lat) vectors into matrices with min and max of -3 and 3. It also changes the Min/Max of my Z matrix to -6.5/8.07.

I need the axis values for X and Y to correctly maintain the Longtitude and Latitude values I've entered. Also I need the absolute values for matrix Z to remain unchanged, since these are gas concentrations differences and I need the color bar to reflect the actual concentration values.

Thanks again for your help!

Aaron

[Patrick Kalita]

I was just using the PEAKS function to generate sample data. Don't use that in your actual plot. Substitute your own data for x, y, and z.