IntroductionΒΆ

This code is intended to provide an interface between the CMIP5/CORDEX Data Reference Syntax (hereafter DRS) for a local repository of CMIP5/CORDEX data, the Earth System Grid Federation (hereafter ESGF) search engine for the efficient, robust and timely computation of climate diagnostics.

The cdb_query package contains separate command sets for CMIP5 and CORDEX archives. The standard workflow for both packages is similar:

  1. A ask command searches the archive for specific variables and user specified date information. Its output is used by the “validate” command.
  2. The validate command refines the “ask” step to check on full availability of specified data over the specified date information. Its output contains full metadata for all the available datasets along with soft links to the data. Its output is used by the reduce_soft_links, download_opendap and download_files commands.
  3. The reduce_soft_links command can apply a script onto the output of validate to enable subsetting.
  4. The download_opendap or download_files commands then retrieves the data using the OPeNDAP protocol or a wget command, respectively.
  5. The data retrieved from download_files is structured in a way that can be accessed by subsequent ask and other commands.
  6. The data retrieved from download_opendap keep the same structure as validate. It can then be processed using the command reduce.

The source code for this project is available on github: https://github.com/laliberte/cdb_query