R - rasters with same crs, extent, dimension, resolution do not align

Question

I am finding the average production days per year for maple syrup. My maple distribution data is in an ascii file. I have a raster (created from NetCDF files) called brick.Tmax. I want to match the specs of brick.Tmax to my maple distribution data.

##    These are the specs I want to use for my maple distribution
brick.Tmax
class       : RasterBrick 
dimensions  : 222, 462, 102564, 366  (nrow, ncol, ncell, nlayers)
resolution  : 0.125, 0.125  (x, y)
extent      : -124.75, -67, 25.125, 52.875  (xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax)
coord. ref. : +proj=longlat +datum=WGS84 +ellps=WGS84 +towgs84=0,0,0 
data source : E:\all_files\gridded_obs.daily.Tmax.1980.nc 
names       : X1980.01.01, X1980.01.02, X1980.01.03, X1980.01.04,    X1980.01.05, X1980.01.06, X1980.01.07, X1980.01.08, X1980.01.09, X1980.01.10, X1980.01.11, X1980.01.12, X1980.01.13, X1980.01.14, X1980.01.15, ... 
Date        : 1980-01-01, 1980-12-31 (min, max)
varname     : Tmax 

## reading in red maple data from ascii file into rasterLayer
red_raster <- raster("E:/all_files/Maple_Data/redmaple.asc")
red_raster
class       : RasterLayer 
dimensions  : 140, 150, 21000  (nrow, ncol, ncell)
resolution  : 20000, 20000  (x, y)
extent      : -1793092, 1206908, -1650894, 1149106  (xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax)
coord. ref. : NA 
data source : E:\all_files\Maple_Data\redmaple.asc 
names       : redmaple 
values      : -2147483648, 2147483647  (min, max)

How can I project all specs (dimension, crs, resoluion, and extent) from brick.Tmax onto red_raster, while still preserving the values of red_raster? It seems like the two are mutually exclusive.

NOTE: In an attempt to streamline my question, I edited my question quite a bit from my original post, so apologies if the comments below are confusing in the current context. (I removed the raster prodavg_rastwhich was acting like a middleman).

You cannot replace the metadata if one raster with those of another and expect things to work. Those steps are assignment of metadata, not transformations. Please report the crs, resolution, dimensions, and extents of your source data. — mdsumner
@mdsumner Thank you for your prompt response! Ah yes, assignment versus transformation. I've edited to add the specs on my source data. — em.d.kear
@RobertH thank you for the direction. I've made suggested edits. — em.d.kear

Robert Hijmans Robert Hijmans · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-01T23:07:46

The two rasters clearly do not have the same extent. In fact are in different universes (coordinate reference systems). brick.Tmax has angular (longitude/latitude) coordinates: +proj=longlat +datum=WGS84 but red_raster clearly does not given extent : -1793092, 1206908, -1650894, 1149106. So to use these data together, one of the two needs to be transformed (projected into the the coordinate reference system of the other). The problem is that we do not know what the the crs of red_raster is (esri ascii files do not store that information!). So you need to find out what it is from your data source, or by guessing giving the area covered and conventions. After you find out, you could do something like:

library(raster)
tmax <- raster(nrow=222, ncol=462, xmn=-124.75, xmx=-67, ymn=25.125, ymx=52.875, crs="+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84")

red <- raster(nrow=140, ncol=150, xmn=-1793092, xmx=1206908, ymn=-1650894, ymx=1149106, crs=NA)
crs(red) <- "  ??????     " 

redLL <- projectRaster(red, tmax)

Projectiong rasters takes time. A good way to test whether you figured out the crs would be to transform some polygons that can show whether things align.

library(rgdal)
states <- shapefile('states.shp')
sr <- spTransform(states, crs(red)
plot(red)
plot(sr, add=TRUE)

R - rasters with same crs, extent, dimension, resolution do not align

1 Answers