If there is a problem with the server, you can send a mail to the DB administrator.
If you are not familiar with Linux and do not know the NetCDF file format, you can easily install the Panoply program to look at the data. You should of course first check if you favorite data plotting and analysis software can read NetCDF files (maybe through an extension that you need to download). The steps below should help you getting started with Panoply:
Just point your favorite web browser to
http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/pmip2_dbextDO_NOT_INDEX/
Note: remove
the DO_NOT_INDEX string at the end of the URL! We have added it on
purpose to avoid web indexing engines from downloading/indexing all
the files in the DB...
Navigate down the directory hierarchy to the file you want to retrieve
(you may want to look at the Variables and DB structure pages), click on it, and save
it where you want on your local machine. This is pretty fast (if you
have a good network connection), but you have to select each file by
hand!
There are some ftp clients that will make
transferring files like this easier (if they can handle transfer
over http...). You can use for instance the linux lftp ftp client:
lftp
http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/pmip2_dbextDO_NOT_INDEX/
You may also want to check what files are
available, before travelling (down) the database.
Just point your favorite web browser to
http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/cgi-bin/nph-dods/pmip2_dbextDO_NOT_INDEX/
Note: remove
the DO_NOT_INDEX string at the end of the URL! We have added it on
purpose to avoid web indexing engines from downloading/indexing all
the files in the DB...
Navigate down the directory hierarchy to the file you are interested
in, click on it, and study the displayed information. When you click
on file.nc in the displayed list of files, it will open a
page with the following URL (notice that the URL ends with
.nc.html):
http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/cgi-bin/nph-dods/pmip2_dbext/<path_in_the_DB>/file.nc.html
This is particularly useful if the programs you use have been
linked with the OPeNDAP NetCDF library. You can then access remote
files in the PMIP2 database by opening the following kind of file
name:
http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/cgi-bin/nph-dods/pmip2_dbextDO_NOT_INDEX/<path_in_the_DB>/file.nc
If you are interested in the content of path/file.nc, where path is the full path to the data file file.nc
Notes
jypeter ... >python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Nov 29 2007, 15:23:25)
[GCC 4.1.2 20070626 (Red Hat 4.1.2-14)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import cdms, genutil
>>> f = cdms.open('http://dods.lsce.ipsl.fr/cgi-bin/nph-dods/pmip2_dbext/pmip2
_21k_oa/atm/fixed/orog/orog_A_FX_pmip2_21k_oa_IPSL-CM4-V1-MR.nc')
>>> v = f('orog')
>>> f.close()
>>> genutil.minmax(v)
(0.0, 5136.7060546875)
>>> v.shape
(72, 96)
>>> v.info()
*** Description of Slab orog ***
id: orog
shape: (72, 96)
filename:
missing_value: [ 1.00000002e+20,]
comments:
grid_name:
grid_type: generic
time_statistic:
long_name: Surface Altitude
units: m
original_name: ZMEA
standard_name: surface_altitude
original_units: m
history: At 18:17:10 on 11/04/2005: CMOR altered the data in the following wa
ys: Cyclical dimension was output starting at a different lon;
Grid has Python id 0x2b699e7d7a28.
Gridtype: generic
Grid shape: (72, 96)
Order: yx
** Dimension 1 **
id: lat
Designated a latitude axis.
units: degrees_north
Length: 72
First: -90.0
Last: 90.0
Other axis attributes:
long_name: latitude
standard_name: latitude
original_units: degrees_north
axis: Y
Python id: 0x2b699e7dd1b8
** Dimension 2 **
id: lon
Designated a longitude axis.
units: degrees_east
Length: 96
First: 0.0
Last: 356.25
Other axis attributes:
long_name: longitude
standard_name: longitude
original_units: degrees_east
axis: X
modulo: 360.0
topology: circular
Python id: 0x2b699e7dd518
*** End of description for orog ***