[REVIEW]: gridwxcomp: A Python package to evaluate and interpolate biases between station and gridded weather data

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @JohnVolk (John Volk)
Repository: https://github.com/WSWUP/gridwxcomp
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: v0.2.0
Editor: @hugoledoux
Reviewers: @ArcticSnow, @dvalters
Archive: Pending

Status

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Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@ArcticSnow & @dvalters, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review.
First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @hugoledoux know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @dvalters

📝 Checklist for @ArcticSnow

[editorialbot]

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[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.1002/joc.3413 is OK
- 10.1111/1752-1688.12956 is OK
- 10.1061/9780784408056 is OK
- 10.5194/essd-13-4349-2021 is OK
- 10.1080/10286600802003500 is OK
- 10.1175/waf-d-10-05037.1 is OK
- 10.1029/2003jd003823 is OK
- 10.1038/s44221-023-00181-7 is OK
- 10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0326.1 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- None

❌ MISSING DOIs

- 10.1038/s41597-021-00973-0 may be a valid DOI for title: Gridded daily weather data for North America with ...
- 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106376 may be a valid DOI for title: An evaluation of gridded weather data sets for the...

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.90  T=0.07 s (1097.9 files/s, 210798.3 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SVG                              1              0              0           2671
Python                          14            759           1532           2659
PO File                         20            533            985           1487
reStructuredText                 9            478            559            899
HTML                            11             47              5            661
XML                              1              0              0            214
INI                              3             32              0            188
TeX                              1              0              0            160
YAML                             3             10             19             71
JavaScript                       5              9             21             63
Markdown                         1             18              0             45
DOS Batch                        1              8              1             26
CSS                              3              1              4             24
make                             1              4              6              9
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            74           1899           3132           9177
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

   227	John Volk
    26	Chris Pearson
     5	Christian Dunkerly

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 1004

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

✅ License found: Apache License 2.0 (Valid open source OSI approved license)

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[dvalters]

Review checklist for @dvalters

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/WSWUP/gridwxcomp?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@JohnVolk) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[hugoledoux]

@dvalters @ArcticSnow a kind reminder that we would like this review to move forward

[ArcticSnow]

Review checklist for @ArcticSnow

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/WSWUP/gridwxcomp?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@JohnVolk) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1. Contribute to the software 2. Report issues or problems with the software 3. Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[ArcticSnow]

Hi,
As I started on the review, I am trying to get gridwxcomp to run on my local machine. I was able to install it without issues. I am however getting lost in the Google Earth Engine process. I have ee.Authenticate() returning True. I created a project on the google portal, but struggle to get the ee API to Initialize ee.Initialize(project='testgridwxcomp').

Any clue what may be the issue? I have never used ee and I am not sure if as a public person I can access the data.

[JohnVolk]

Hi Simon,

When initializing EE there is no data being accessed, later the code will pull from public Google EE data assets so that should not be an issue. Can you post the error you are seeing from ee.Initialize() ?

[ArcticSnow]

Thank you John for your quick support!
Interestingly, when running as you suggested ee.Initialize() without specifying project, it prompt me a useful error message. I was able to register the project, and clear this step. Google Earth engine from the Python API is new to me.

[dvalters]

I will finish my review this week - thanks for your patience

[JohnVolk]

Thank you @dvalters!

[JohnVolk]

@ArcticSnow and @dvalters - any update on your review process and estimated time to complete would be appreciated! Thank you!

[dvalters]

Hi, sorry this has taken a while longer than planned. Mid way through last week, Google changed the requirements for access to Earth Engine and it now requires a Google Cloud Project to be set up. https://earthengine.google.com/ I'm currently setting up a cloud project to finish the review

[dvalters]

I'm also struggling to get past the Earth Engine Initialization point using Google Cloud projects. I've tried running ee.Initialize() and ee.Initialize(project="ee-myproject") but I am getting errors such as:

 project, credentials)
    268     project = self._determine_default(project)
    270 if project is None:
--> 271     raise EnvironmentError(
    272         "Project was not passed and could not be "
    273         "determined from the environment."
    274     )
    276 if isinstance(project, bytes):
    277     project = project.decode("utf-8")

OSError: Project was not passed and could not be determined from the environment.

I have tried passing the project name but I still get the same error

[dvalters]

My running feeling when reviewing this submission so far is that the software seems very tightly coupled with Google Earth Engine, and now Google Cloud Projects, which has made it time-consuming/difficult to access the data required for testing purposes. That's not a criticism of the software per se which looks to have a very useful application. But my feeling is that it falls short of the following JOSS criteria:

Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.

Is there a way to provide a standalone, offline, test data set? Or could the tutorial documentation be improved to guide people not familiar with setting up Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud projects?

Thanks for your patience so far

[JohnVolk]

Hi @dvalters, I'm working on testing with the new project ID GEE requirement and will add what I find here and to the docs, if for some reason it cannot be resolved, I can add a standalone dataset for you to continue testing. Thanks for your update. The reason we went with GEE as a tool for accessing data is simply because it hosts so many different weather and climate datasets publicly. I'm sure we can get this straightened out soon and improve the docs with more details to prevent this from happening for others.

[JohnVolk]

A couple things to check, @dvalters:

• Can you check on the Google Cloud Console that your project-ID is currently enabled and being used, https://console.cloud.google.com/

• Try running ee.Authenticate() before ee.initialize(), this should help you setup the GEE project the first time.

If neither of those work also try adding the following if you are running Jupyter Notebook (based off the error you showed):

import os os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"] = "your-project-id"
You could also try adding your project ID to your ~/.bashrc file using the following line:

export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT="your-project-id"

Please update with how it goes.

[JohnVolk]

@dvalters I'm just following up on your GEE account set up, have you been able to get it working? Also, to improve the software and help other users from experiencing similar problems I added a section Getting Started with Google Earth Engine that should cover in detail how to set up an account and get it working properly before continuing with the online tutorial. Thanks for bringing this up, it will be a big help for many I'm sure!

[JohnVolk]

@ArcticSnow and @dvalters - any update on your review process and if you think you can complete before the Holidays would be greatly appreciated! Take care

[dvalters]

Hi @JohnVolk - I'm happy to confirm I was able to sufficiently test the remaining checklist items. It's good to go from me. Thanks for your patience and have a good holiday season :)