This icon derives (and returns) a vertical average cross sectional data unit of upper air fields. For each upper air field, this average is taken along the North-South or East-West direction over a specified rectangular area and then interpolated horizontally along the direction perpendicular to the averaging direction with a spacing consistent with the resolution of the input GRIB data. The average cross section data can be plotted (using a default visualisation and with the plot area based on the range of data values) or saved as a NetCDF data file. A related icon, Average View, is used to provide average cross section plotting specifications. You can use it to visualise an average cross-section without explicitly deriving the average cross-section data - see "Average View" on page III- 139 and references thereinViews.. The macro language equivalent is xsmxs_average(). |