I found a much nicer solution to the problem which uses the polygons defined by the coastlines in the map to produce a matplotlib.PathPatch that overlays the ocean areas. This solution has a much better resolution and is much faster:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits import basemap as bm
from matplotlib import colors
import numpy as np
import numpy.ma as ma
from matplotlib.patches import Path, PathPatch
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
lon_0 = 319
lat_0 = 72
##some fake data
lons = np.linspace(lon_0-60,lon_0+60,10)
lats = np.linspace(lat_0-15,lat_0+15,5)
lon, lat = np.meshgrid(lons,lats)
TOPO = np.sin(np.pi*lon/180)*np.exp(lat/90)
m = bm.Basemap(resolution='i',projection='laea', width=1500000, height=2900000, lat_ts=60, lat_0=lat_0, lon_0=lon_0, ax = ax)
m.drawcoastlines(linewidth=0.5)
x,y = m(lon,lat)
pcol = ax.pcolormesh(x,y,TOPO)
##getting the limits of the map:
x0,x1 = ax.get_xlim()
y0,y1 = ax.get_ylim()
map_edges = np.array([[x0,y0],[x1,y0],[x1,y1],[x0,y1]])
##getting all polygons used to draw the coastlines of the map
polys = [p.boundary for p in m.landpolygons]
##combining with map edges
polys = [map_edges]+polys[:]
##creating a PathPatch
codes = [
[Path.MOVETO] + [Path.LINETO for p in p[1:]]
for p in polys
]
polys_lin = [v for p in polys for v in p]
codes_lin = [c for cs in codes for c in cs]
path = Path(polys_lin, codes_lin)
patch = PathPatch(path,facecolor='white', lw=0)
##masking the data:
ax.add_patch(patch)
plt.show()
The output looks like this:
Original solution:
You can use an array with greater resolution in basemap.maskoceans, such that the resolution fits the continent outlines. Afterwards, you can just invert the mask and plot the masked array on top of your data.
Somehow I only got basemap.maskoceans to work when I used the full range of the map (e.g. longitudes from -180 to 180 and latitudes from -90 to 90). Given that one needs quite a high resolution to make it look nice, the computation takes a while:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits import basemap as bm
from matplotlib import colors
import numpy as np
import numpy.ma as ma
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
lon_0 = 319
lat_0 = 72
##some fake data
lons = np.linspace(lon_0-60,lon_0+60,10)
lats = np.linspace(lat_0-15,lat_0+15,5)
lon, lat = np.meshgrid(lons,lats)
TOPO = np.sin(np.pi*lon/180)*np.exp(lat/90)
m = bm.Basemap(resolution='i',projection='laea', width=1500000, height=2900000, lat_ts=60, lat_0=lat_0, lon_0=lon_0, ax = ax)
m.drawcoastlines(linewidth=0.5)
x,y = m(lon,lat)
pcol = ax.pcolormesh(x,y,TOPO)
##producing a mask -- seems to only work with full coordinate limits
lons2 = np.linspace(-180,180,10000)
lats2 = np.linspace(-90,90,5000)
lon2, lat2 = np.meshgrid(lons2,lats2)
x2,y2 = m(lon2,lat2)
pseudo_data = np.ones_like(lon2)
masked = bm.maskoceans(lon2,lat2,pseudo_data)
masked.mask = ~masked.mask
##plotting the mask
cmap = colors.ListedColormap(['w'])
pcol = ax.pcolormesh(x2,y2,masked, cmap=cmap)
plt.show()
The result looks like this:
