Preparing Release v2026.04.0 (#11298)

This release bumps the minimum supported ``zarr`` version to 3.0, finalizes the
deprecation of timedelta decoding via units, adds ``col_wrap='auto'`` for plots,
a new ``inherit='all_coords'`` option for :py:meth:`DataTree.to_dataset`, and a
``facetgrid_figsize`` option for :py:func:`~xarray.set_options`.

Author: jsignell

doc/whats-new.rst

@@ -6,10 +6,21 @@
 What's New
 ==========
 
-.. _whats-new.2026.03.0:
+.. _whats-new.2026.04.0:
 
-v2026.03.0 (unreleased)
------------------------
+v2026.04.0 (Apr 13, 2026)
+-------------------------
+
+This release bumps the minimum supported ``zarr`` version to 3.0, finalizes the
+deprecation of timedelta decoding via units, adds ``col_wrap='auto'`` for plots,
+a new ``inherit='all_coords'`` option for :py:meth:`DataTree.to_dataset`, and a
+``facetgrid_figsize`` option for :py:func:`~xarray.set_options`.
+
+Thanks to the 22 contributors to this release:
+Adam Newgas, Alfonso Ladino, Copilot, Deepak Cherian, Emmanuel Ferdman, Ian Hunt-Isaak,
+Ilan Gold, Illviljan, Jakob Harteg, Joe Hamman, Julia Signell, Justus Magin,
+Kai Mühlbauer, Max Jones, Michael Niklas, Nick Hodgskin, Pieter Eendebak,
+Spencer Clark, frostByte, kkollsga, rsignell and yaochengchen
 
 New Features
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -22,6 +33,11 @@ New Features
   By `Michael Niklas <https://github.com/headtr1ck>`_.
 - Added complex dtype support to FillValueCoder for the Zarr backend. (:pull:`11151`)
   By `Max Jones <https://github.com/maxrjones>`_.
+- Added ``facetgrid_figsize`` option to :py:func:`~xarray.set_options` allowing
+  :py:class:`~xarray.plot.FacetGrid` to use ``matplotlib.rcParams['figure.figsize']``
+  or a fixed ``(width, height)`` tuple instead of computing figure size from
+  ``size`` and ``aspect`` (:issue:`11103`).
+  By `Kristian Kollsga <https://github.com/kkollsga>`_.
 
 Breaking Changes
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -104,6 +120,11 @@ Breaking Changes
   ``open_dataset`` and ``open_datatree`` the default behavior of fsspec is now to
   use block caching with a 4MB block size (:pull:`11216`). By `Julia Signell
   <https://github.com/jsignell>`_.
+- Passing a :py:class:`Dataset` as ``data_vars`` to the :py:class:`Dataset`
+  constructor now raises :py:class:`TypeError`. This was never intended behavior
+  and silently dropped ``attrs``. Use :py:meth:`Dataset.copy` instead
+  (:issue:`11095`).
+  By `Kristian Kollsga <https://github.com/kkollsga>`_.
 
 Deprecations
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -185,11 +206,6 @@ Antonio Valentino, Chris Barker, Christine P. Chai, Deepak Cherian, Ewan Short,
 New Features
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-- Added ``facetgrid_figsize`` option to :py:func:`~xarray.set_options` allowing
-  :py:class:`~xarray.plot.FacetGrid` to use ``matplotlib.rcParams['figure.figsize']``
-  or a fixed ``(width, height)`` tuple instead of computing figure size from
-  ``size`` and ``aspect`` (:issue:`11103`).
-  By `Kristian Kollsga <https://github.com/kkollsga>`_.
 - :py:class:`~xarray.indexes.NDPointIndex` now supports coordinates with fewer
   dimensions than coordinate variables, enabling indexing of scattered points
   and trajectories where multiple coordinates (e.g., ``x``, ``y``) share a
@@ -204,11 +220,6 @@ Breaking Changes
   not intended to be visible to end-users so this version of xarray
   switches to using ``FutureWarning`` everywhere (:pull:`11112`).
   By `Julia Signell <https://github.com/jsignell>`_.
-- Passing a :py:class:`Dataset` as ``data_vars`` to the :py:class:`Dataset`
-  constructor now raises :py:class:`TypeError`. This was never intended behavior
-  and silently dropped ``attrs``. Use :py:meth:`Dataset.copy` instead
-  (:issue:`11095`).
-  By `Kristian Kollsga <https://github.com/kkollsga>`_.
 
 Bug Fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~
@@ -385,9 +396,6 @@ Performance
 
 - Add a fastpath to the backend plugin system for standard engines (:issue:`10178`, :pull:`10937`).
   By `Sam Levang <https://github.com/slevang>`_.
-- Groupby cumsum can now be accelerated with flox. Coordinates are now retained
-  as well. (:issue:`6528`, :pull:`10987`)
-  By `Jimmy Westling <https://github.com/illviljan>`_.
 - Optimize :py:class:`~xarray.coding.variables.CFMaskCoder` decoder (:pull:`11105`).
   By `Deepak Cherian <https://github.com/dcherian>`_.
 
@@ -1852,9 +1860,6 @@ Bug fixes
 - Fix deprecation warning that was raised when calling ``np.array`` on an ``xr.DataArray``
   in NumPy 2.0 (:issue:`9312`, :pull:`9393`)
   By `Andrew Scherer <https://github.com/andrew-s28>`_.
-- Fix passing missing arguments to when opening hdf5 and netCDF4 datatrees
-  (:issue:`9427`, :pull:`9428`).
-  By `Alfonso Ladino <https://github.com/aladinor>`_.
 - Fix support for using ``pandas.DateOffset``, ``pandas.Timedelta``, and
   ``datetime.timedelta`` objects as ``resample`` frequencies
   (:issue:`9408`, :pull:`9413`).
@@ -2951,9 +2956,6 @@ Bug fixes
 Documentation
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-- Added examples to docstrings of :py:meth:`Dataset.assign_attrs`, :py:meth:`Dataset.broadcast_equals`,
-  :py:meth:`Dataset.equals`, :py:meth:`Dataset.identical`, :py:meth:`Dataset.expand_dims`, :py:meth:`Dataset.drop_vars`
-  (:issue:`6793`, :pull:`7937`) By `Harshitha <https://github.com/harshitha1201>`_.
 - Added page on wrapping chunked numpy-like arrays as alternatives to dask arrays.
   (:pull:`7951`) By `Tom Nicholas <https://github.com/TomNicholas>`_.
 - Expanded the page on wrapping numpy-like "duck" arrays.