place a colorbar label above horizontal colorbar (instead of below)

Question

I'm generating a horizontal colorbar with this code:

cbaxes = fig.add_axes([0.05, 0.15, 0.9, 0.025]) # setup colorbar axes.
cb = fig.colorbar(cax=cbaxes, mappable=mappable, orientation='horizontal',)
cb.set_label(r"$[10^{14}\ molec\,cm^{-2}]$", fontname='Arial', fontsize='small')
cbytick_obj = plt.getp(cb.ax.axes, 'xticklabels')
plt.setp(cbytick_obj, color='r', fontsize='x-small')
cb.ax.set_yticks(arange(vmin, vmax, 2), size='small')

However, I want the label be printed above the colorbar (instead of below). How can I do that?

Answer 1

Here's how I did it. The key seems to be to call the colorbar's axes' set_xlabel method instead:

cbaxes = fig.add_axes([0.05, 0.05, 0.9, 0.025])
cb = fig.colorbar(cax=cbaxes, mappable=mappable, orientation='horizontal')
cbaxes.set_xlabel(r"$[10^{14}\ molec\,cm^{-2}]$", fontname='Arial',
            fontsize='small', labelpad=-35)
cb.set_ticks(arange(vmin, vmax + 1, 2))
cbytick_obj = plt.getp(cb.ax.axes, 'xticklabels')
plt.setp(cbytick_obj, fontsize='x-small')

Answer 2

You could try using the following code:

cb.ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('top')
cb.ax.xaxis.set_label_position('top')

Answer 3

You could also use: cb.ax.tick_params(axis='x',direction='in',labeltop='on')

There are also plentiful other parameters that could be set up there.