Sunspots Data

Solar storms can damage satellites. When will the next damaging solar storms occur? Major solar storms are usually associated with peaks in sunspot activity, and sunspot activity is periodic. The next expected peak in sunspot activity is the next likely time for damaging solar storms. Sunspot data has been collected regularly for over 300 years, and the raw data is available on the Web. Early data collection was monthly, but after World War II daily data collection began, and that is the data we will use. Unfortunately, raw data is noisy so to do a reasonable prediction the data needs to be smoothed (explained below). The standard sunspot smoothing is based on monthly averages. Your program will output 2 files, one is the monthly sunspots totaled. The other will be the smoothed sunspots per month. Smoothing functions can be used to eliminate noise.

Sunspots.csv datafile

You are provided an input file called sunspots.csv. This is a comma separated value file. The first value is the year, then the month, then day. The 4th value is a decimal form of the year, which we dont need. The 5th value is the number of sunspots observed. A -1 indicates no observation and will be assumed as zero for our purposes, there may also be non-numeric characters in the field, which can also be counted as zero. ( elegantly handle the exceptions ) The 6th column will not be used. You can use the .csv module for reading through the file.

Example

1818,01,01,1818.004, ?,1 1818,01,02,1818.007, ?,1 1818,01,03,1818.010, ?,1 1818,01,04,1818.012, ?,1 1818,01,05,1818.015, ?,1 1818,01,06,1818.018, ?,1 1818,01,07,1818.021, ?,1 1818,01,08,1818.023, 39,1 1818,01,09,1818.026, ?,1 1818,01,10,1818.029, ?,1 1818,01,11,1818.031, ?,1 1818,01,12,1818.034, ?,1

try to do this in the simplest way possible that would be best

Monthtotal.csv datafile The first file you will output will be the Monthtotal.csv file. It should contain 3 columns. First being the year, then the month and then the total sunspots observed for that month. Example output 1818,01,279 1818,02,314 MonthSmoothed.csv datafile The smoothing algorithm roughly works by taking six months of data on either side of a month and averaging. The algorithm has a strange twist in that the first and last months in the smoothing average only supply half their month's value. If the month and year is 7a variable we will used to represent the month we are smoothing, then then the value for the month will be 12+13/2)/12 Example output 1818,7,568.2916666666666 1818,8,568.625 1818,9,552.9166666666666 1818,10, 530.8333333333334 Specification and hints Break the program down in parts and solve the parts you know you can solve One of the hardest parts was calculating the averages. Particularly counting backwards through years month. There are several different ways to solve this one . . When calculating the smoothed data, remember not to use already smoothed data. ( keep the monthly totals in one data structure and the create smoothed data in another.) Monthtotal.csv datafile The first file you will output will be the Monthtotal.csv file. It should contain 3 columns. First being the year, then the month and then the total sunspots observed for that month. Example output 1818,01,279 1818,02,314 MonthSmoothed.csv datafile The smoothing algorithm roughly works by taking six months of data on either side of a month and averaging. The algorithm has a strange twist in that the first and last months in the smoothing average only supply half their month's value. If the month and year is 7a variable we will used to represent the month we are smoothing, then then the value for the month will be 12+13/2)/12 Example output 1818,7,568.2916666666666 1818,8,568.625 1818,9,552.9166666666666 1818,10, 530.8333333333334 Specification and hints Break the program down in parts and solve the parts you know you can solve One of the hardest parts was calculating the averages. Particularly counting backwards through years month. There are several different ways to solve this one . . When calculating the smoothed data, remember not to use already smoothed data. ( keep the monthly totals in one data structure and the create smoothed data in another.)