Colorbar titles in matplotlib

In matplotlib sometimes you want to put some title in a colorbar, when producing a filled contour plot or similar. One way is to simply:

	fig=plt.figure()
	## AXES HANDLE
	ax=fig.add_axes(mpltr.Bbox([[ .14 , .14 ],[ .90 , .92 ]]))
	## COLORBAR AXES HANDLE
	cx=fig.add_axes(mpltr.Bbox([[ .91 , .14 ],[ .93 , .92 ]]))
	...
	## PLOT THE STUFF YOU WANT
	ax.contourf(X, Y, Z, etc... )
	...
	## COLORBAR
	cb=plt.colorbar(cf, cax=cx)
	plt.figtext(.91, .92, (r"Variable Z"), va='bottom', ha='left')
	...

view raw colorbar_title0.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Another way is to use the set_title or the set_xlabel of your colorbar axes. For the first:

	...
	## COLORBAR
	cb=plt.colorbar(cf, cax=cx)
	cx.set_title(r"Variable Z")
	...

view raw colorbat_title1.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

However in this way I don't know how to set the title at a distance from the axes. For the second, this can be done using the labelpad:

	...
	## COLORBAR
	cb=plt.colorbar(cf, cax=cx)
	cx.set_xlabel(r"Variable Z", labelpad=10)
	cx.xaxis.set_label_position('top')
	...

view raw colorbar_title2.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub