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..and We Have Figures!

Submitted by Meagan Flier on July 25, 2011 - 10:28am
     After weeks of cursing Unix and Matlab, I’m starting to appreciate them more each day. For the entirety of this internship at CMOP I’ve been struggling with c-code and Matlab scripts to filter the output from SELFE and be able to provide tangible evidence of the filtered data. I’ve had some success along the way, but my work has more or less followed the “one step back for every two steps forward” motto. As of week six however, I’m finally able to provide the filtered data for habitat opportunity in multiple forms so as to yield a better aid in the final analysis of the Columbia River Estuary and its available habitat. As of right now I’m able to conjure single figures for each parameter (temperature, salinity, velocity, elevation) both separately and collectively as well as movies and time-series to depict the habitat changes throughout the estuary. I believe multiple forms of displaying the data are necessary; the movie provides a qualitative form for analyzing the filtered data, and the time-series graphs allow for a more quantitative analysis.

     One of the things I learned this week was that how one displays data can be just as important as how one computes it. If people aren’t able to easily understand what a figure or graph is trying to convey, then the subsequent analysis can be difficult and full of errors. Just as people have different reactions to a piece of art, so too can people have various conclusions from the summary/display of data. Thus how one conveys the data highly influences how the data is perceived. Not only do people need to be able to read the data, but the data also needs to be useful. So now that I have several versions of display to depict the data, my job for the next week is to make sure that the whole filtering process as well as data display is efficient and without any trace of error.  

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