Recipe: Visualize downloaded data using Panoply

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Problem

We want to visualize a downloaded data file using Panoply.

Solution

For the purpose of this example, we assume that we have already downloaded the file c1440_NR.inst01hr_3d_T_Cv.20060918_0900z.nc4 from the ftp/http server. For more information about file naming conventions, and how to download a file, please follow the links in the #See Also section.

Panoply (v 4.0.5) is a cross-platform application that plots geo-gridded and other arrays from NetCDF, HDF, GRIB, and other datasets. For more information, please see

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

Once panoply is installed, it can be launched from the command line via

> panoply.sh

assuming that the shell script panoply.sh is in the user's path.

Once launched, the following window is presented

To load the downloaded data file navigate to File -> Open... and choose the downloaded file. Opening the file leads to the display

Here, we select our variable, T, from the 'Datasets' tab and click on 'Create Plot'. In the new window that appears, we select the first option 'Create geogridded Longitude-Latitude plot' and click on 'Create'. To plot the air temperature at the surface (level=72), in the 'Array(s)' Tab we set the 'Vertical level:' to 72 and check the 'Always fit to data' box in the 'Scale' tab resulting in

File:Panopy temperature.png

See Also

1. File Spec: File:G5NR-Ganymed-7km FileSpec-ON6-V1.0.pdf
2. Recipe: Retrieve (global) data from FTP server
3. Recipe: Retrieve (global) data from HTTP server