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Using JupyterLab & Python Programming 2

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Using JupyterLab

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • How can I use JupyterLab for Climate Data Analysis

Objectives

  • Learn key features of JupyterLab to use for Climate Data Analysis

JupyterLab (Jupyter Notebook)

JupyterLab allows us to create Jupyter Notebooks which can contain a combination of code, figures, links, formatted text, and even LaTex equations.

It is also a web-based programming interface for mutiple languages (e.g. Python, R, Julia…). We will use it as our Python programming interface.

Because it also allows figures, links, text, and equations in addition to code, it is very useful for use in research allowing all your information related to your research to be kept together rather than in separate documents. It’s like a fancy, high-tech research journal!

Creating and working with a Jupyter Notebook

First, let’s create a new Jupyter Notebook by clicking in the menu bar File->New->Notebook or in the Launcher clicking on Python 3 (ORC) in the row labeled Notebook This creates a new notebook with a default title Untitled.ipynb or Untitled#.ipynb. Note that Jupyter Notebooks end in .ipynb

Change the name of your notebook to PracticeNotebook.ipynb by clicking File->Save Notebook As

Each rectangular box in your notebook is called a cell it contains a block of code, Markdown text, or Raw text. What a cell contains is indicated in the menu above.

To determine what kind of code our notebook will contain and run, the kernel is shown in the upper right. This notebook contains Python 3 code. (ORC) is the environment, which has a preset list of libraries available to import. Later we will learn how to make and modify environments.

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a formatting language that allows you to provide basic formatted text (e.g. bold, italics, links, different sized font, and LaTeX equations). It’s not as fancy as what you could do with a word processor, but for documenting projects in Jupyter notebooks, it gets the job done nicely!

As an example, let’s type the following in a cell and change the cell to Markdown:

# CLIM 680 Practice Notebook
## by {your name here}
#### for class

### We can insert `LaTeX` equations
The equation for the mean $\mu_n$ is given by: 
$$ \mu_n=\sum_{i=1}^{N}X $$

#### We can link to papers
The analysis in this notebook follows, [Pegion et al. 2019](https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0270.1)

#### We can make a numbered list 
This notebook will do:
1. First thing
2. Second thing
3. Third thing

#### We can make a bulleted list. Important things for this notebook are:
* something important
* something else important
  * A subset of something important

Once you are finished, run the cell by either:

Your result should look something like this once you run the cell:

markup cell example

What is LaTeX (and why do you type it like that)?

LaTeX (pronounced “lah-tek” or “lay-tek” but never “lay-teks”) is a simple text-based protocol for encoding text to be formatted for publication printing. It evolved from the days before word processors, and even before GUI operating systems like Windows and Mac OS, when everything about computing had to be typed at the command like of a terminal window.

LaTeX was started in the mid 1980s as a publication-quality protocol for encoding typesetting commands as a set of special codes embedded within normal text. It is still very popular to this day, especially with mathematicians, physicists and others who write a lot of equations. It’s system is considered easier and faster to type than the equation coding systems of apps like Microsoft Word. In fact, it’s so popular that modern versions of Word allow users the option to use LaTeX syntax in its own equation editor.

Here is a handy guide for rendering mathematical symbols and expressions in LaTeX, which will also render nicely in markdown cells within Jupyter notebooks.

Key Points

  • JupyterLab can be used as a Python programming environment

  • You can create notebooks with codes, figures, links, text, and equations

  • You can run your codes in JupyterLab cell by cell

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