Xarray conversion - Project Tracking Card

[akeeste]

In the near future, MHKiT will begin transitioning from using pandas as its base to xarray. The development team made this decision for several reasons:

• It is much easier to have functionality in xarray and convert xarray to pandas, than convert pandas to xarray. xarray and pandas can both still be used as function input/output
• User requests @ryancoe @cmichelenstrofer
• Increases interoperability with ME Data Pipeline @jmcvey3 and Capytaine @cmichelenstrofer

The below comment is a Project Tracking Card (i.e. roadmap) that records the reasoning for this change and further details the intended steps to complete this process. There is no hard timeline for each step yet, but we're hoping to make significant progress over FY24.

If @ryancoe @cmichelenstrofer @jmcvey3 or others have modules that you would like prioritized, please let us know!

Closing #78 in favor of tracking things here.