Command line interface

alcf-download – Download model data.

Synopsis

alcf download <type> [login_options] --login
alcf download <type> point: { <lon> <lat> } time: { <start> <end> } [<options>] [--] <output>
alcf download <type> track: <track> [<options>] [--] <output>

Description

This command downloads model data required by the lidar simulator for a given geographical point or ship track. Not all models supported by the other ALCF commands are supported by alcf download - these have to be acquired manually. Before downloading data, you have register an account on Copernicus CDS (ERA5; https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu) or NASA Earthdata (MERRA-2; https://earthdata.nasa.gov) and run alcf download <type> --login. This prompts for credentials interactively. For non-interactive use, use the --overwrite option and credential options (see the login options below). Only geographical subsets necessary to cover the point or track are downloaded.

Arguments following -- are treated as literal strings. Use this delimiter if the output file name might otherwise be interpreted as non-strings, e.g. purely numerical file names.

Arguments

type: Model type (see Model types below).
lon: Point longitude (degrees East).
lat: Point latitutde (degrees North).
start: Start time (see Time format below).
end: End time (see Time format below).
track: <file>, track: { <file>... }: One or more track NetCDF files (see Files below). If multiple files are supplied and time_bnds is not present in the files, they are assumed to be multiple segments of a discontinous track unless the last and first time of adjacent tracks are the same.
output: Output directory.
login_options: See login options below.
options: See Options below.

Options

--nocache: Disable server-side caching of requests, when applicable.
--overwrite: Overwrite existing files.
track_gap: <interval>: If the interval is not 0, a track file is supplied, the time_bnds variable is not defined in the file and any two adjacent points are separated by more than the specified time interval (seconds), then a gap is assumed to be present between the two data points, instead of interpolating location between the two points. Default: 21600 (6 hours).

--overwrite: Overwrite existing files.

user: <value>: Supply non-interactive user instead of prompting.
password: <value>: Supply non-interactive password instead of prompting.

uid: <value>: Supply non-interactive UID instead of prompting.
key: <value>: Supply non-interactive API key instead of prompting.

Model types

era5: ERA5.
merra2: MERRA-2.

Files

The track file is a NetCDF file containing 1D variables lon, lat, time, and optionally time_bnds. time and time_bnds are time in format conforming with the CF Conventions (has a valid units attribute and optional calendar attribute), lon is longitude between 0 and 360 degrees and lat is latitude between -90 and 90 degrees. If time_bnds is provided, discontinous track segments can be specified if adjacent time bounds are not coincident. The variables lon, lat and time have a single dimension time. The variable time_bnds has dimensions (time, bnds).

Time format

YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM[:SS]], where YYYY is year, MM is month, DD is day, HH is hour, MM is minute, SS is second. Example: 2000-01-01T00:00:00.

Examples

alcf download era5 --login

Download ERA5 data at 45 S, 170 E between 1 and 2 January 2020 and store the output in the directory era5.

alcf download era5 point: { 170.0 -45.0 } time: { 2020-01-01 2020-01-02 } era5

alcf download merra2 --login

Download MERRA-2 data for a ship track track.nc and store the output in the directory merra2.

alcf download merra2 track: track.nc merra2