Plotting two figures from two xarrays side by side

Question

I'm trying to plot two subplots side by side. Each subplot is a variable from xarray, and the plot is a projection.

My plotting function is:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import cartopy.crs as ccrs
import cartopy

def plot_avg(data, **kwargs):


    ax = plt.axes(projection=ccrs.Orthographic(central_latitude=-90.0))

    ax.coastlines(resolution='10m',zorder=3)
    ax.gridlines(color='gray')
    ax.add_feature(cartopy.feature.LAND, zorder=1,facecolor=cartopy.feature.COLORS['land_alt1'])
    data.plot(ax = ax, transform=ccrs.PlateCarree(),
               vmin = 34.4 , vmax=35.81 , levels=17 ,
               cmap=Becki, cbar_kwargs={'shrink': 0.3})

And the main code is:

fig = plt.figure()

ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
plot_avg(var1)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(122)
plot_avg(var2)

But for some reason I can't do it, i always get one plot with two colorbars:

What can I do differently? I'm having a hard time with the plot objects from the xarray.

The sample data files for plotting are here: netcdf files

Answer 1

You create too many axes here. Make sure to only create the two axes you want to use.

def plot_avg(data, ax, **kwargs):
    ax.coastlines(resolution='10m',zorder=3)
    ax.gridlines(color='gray')
    ax.add_feature(cartopy.feature.LAND, zorder=1,facecolor=cartopy.feature.COLORS['land_alt1'])
    data.plot(ax = ax, transform=ccrs.PlateCarree(),
               vmin = 34.4 , vmax=35.81 , levels=17 ,
               cmap=Becki, cbar_kwargs={'shrink': 0.3})

fig = plt.figure()

ax1 = fig.add_subplot(121, projection=ccrs.Orthographic(central_latitude=-90.0))
plot_avg(var1, ax1)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(122, projection=ccrs.Orthographic(central_latitude=-90.0))
plot_avg(var2, ax2)