Python subplots leaving space for common axis labels

Question

I have the following code that makes four subplots in one figure:

f = figure( figsize=(7,7) )
f.add_axes([0.2,0.175,0.75,0.75])
f.subplots_adjust(left=0.15)
f.clf()
ax = f.add_subplot(111)
ax1 = f.add_subplot(221)
ax2 = f.add_subplot(222)
ax3 = f.add_subplot(223)
ax4 = f.add_subplot(224)
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
ax.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
ax2.xaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
ax2.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
ax1.xaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
ax4.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
f.subplots_adjust(wspace=0,hspace=0)

ax1.plot(tbins[0:24], mean_yszth1, color='r', label='mean', marker='.', lw=3)
ax2.plot(tbins[0:24], mean_ysz1, color='r', label='mean', marker='.', lw=3)
ax3.plot(tbins[0:24], mean_yszth2, color='r', label='mean', marker='.', lw=3)
ax4.plot(tbins[0:24], mean_ysz2, color='r', label='mean', marker='.', lw=3)

ax1.set_xlim(0,12)
ax1.set_ylim(-0.5,0.5)
ax2.set_xlim(0,12)
ax2.set_ylim(-0.5,0.5)
ax3.set_xlim(0,12)
ax3.set_ylim(-0.5,0.5)
ax4.set_xlim(0,12)
ax4.set_ylim(-0.5,0.5)
ax.set_xlabel(r"$\mathrm{Time\ since\ last\ merger\ (Gyr)}$")
ax.set_ylabel(r"$\mathrm{\Delta Y_{SZ}/Y_{SZ}}$")

The result looks like this:

As you can see, the axis labels overlap with the ticks. I would like to move the common axis labels away from the axes a little. I can't figure out how best to do this.

Answer 1

Use labelpad parameter of set_ylabel and set_xlabel methods:

Definition: ax.set_ylabel(self, ylabel, fontdict=None, labelpad=None, **kwargs)
Docstring:
Call signature::

  set_ylabel(ylabel, fontdict=None, labelpad=None, **kwargs)

Set the label for the yaxis

*labelpad* is the spacing in points between the label and the y-axis

This is what I get with labelpad set to 50 (x) and 60 (y). I had to modify manually figure margins as the labels were outside the figure frame when using the default configuration.

Edit
From your comments it seems you could be using a very old version of matplotlib. Labelpad parameter has been in matplotlib from many versions ago but the way to of setting it could be different (I do not know for sure).
In the web I found some comments that point to this usage:

ax.xaxis.LABELPAD = 8  # default is 5

also I have seen it like:

ax.xaxis.labelpad = 8