get_historical_data: Download historical climate data
Description
The Climate Data API provides access to historical
temperature and precipitation data. These data are separate
from the outputs of the GCMs, and they are based on gridded
climatologies from the Climate Research Unit.
Usage
get_historical_data(locator, cvar, time_scale)
Arguments
locator
The ISO3 country code that you want data
about.
(http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm) or
the basin ID [1-468]. The historical period for country
is 1901 - 2009, and 1960 - 2009 for basin
cvar
The climate variable you're interested in.
"pr" for precipitation, "tas" for
temperature in celcius.
time_scale
The time scale you want to return
values on. Must be "month", "year" or
"decade"
Value
a dataframe with historical climate data
Details
The time_scale parameter returns a different number of
variables depending on the input timescale. Month
will return 12 values, a historical average for that month
across all years. Year will return yearly averages
for each year, and decade will return decade
averages.