;dTdX
nlat=19
dlon = (lon(2)-lon(1))*0.0174533 ; convert to radians
; pre-allocate space
dTdX = new ( dimsizes(T), typeof(T), T@_FillValue)
do nl=0,nlat-1 ; loop over each latitude
dX = 6378388.*cos(0.0174533*lat(nl))*dlon ; constant at this latitude
dTdX(:,:,nl:nl,:) = center_finite_diff_n (T(:,:,nl:nl,:), dX , True,0,3)
end do