KarsTS: an R package for microclimate time series analysis

Abstract

KarsTS 2.2 is free, open-source, R-based software for microclimate time series, especially suited to the study of underground or highly insulated environments. The time series of interest include air temperature, humidity, and CO2 and 222Rn content, amongst others. These time series usually pose problems such as gaps, outliers, noise or relative shortness. KarsTS was born as a package for gap filling and thus, it offers multiple univariate and multivariate gap-filling tools well suited to these variables. However, as KarsTS was intended to be a self-sufficient program, it soon grew to encompass several tools for linear and nonlinear time series analysis, preprocessing and plotting. Indeed, many of these variables show a nonlinear behavior that is often disregarded; for this reason, we aim to spread and facilitate the use of some methodologically appropriate analysis tools, even amongst researcher that do not feel comfortable using a console. In this paper, we introduce an overview of KarsTS functionality and we show its potential through some practical application examples on four-year time series of temperature from the Rull cave (Spain).