Create temperate over time animation. Example at https://vimeo.com/107410270

animating_temperature.py

from iris import load_cube
import iris.quickplot as qplt
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import animation
import sys


# air_temp_location is the directory with your air.sig995 netCDF files
air_temp_location = ""
date = range(1948,2015)


def plot_year(i):
    plt.gcf().clf()
    year = date[i]
    fileout = 'air.sig995.'+ str(year) + '.nc'
    temperature = load_cube(air_temp_location + fileout)
    cont = qplt.contourf(temperature[0,:,:])
    gca().coastlines()
    plt.title('{0} Mean Daily Air Temperature at Sigma Level 995'.format(year))
    return cont  


fig = plt.figure()

anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, plot_year,
                               frames=len(date))
anim.save('air_temperature_over_time.mp4', fps=5)