Failed to read netcdf file. Help needed

Question

I have try my best to read this file using few softwares, Idrisi, ArcMap, Envi but failed. The only software that can read this data is Panoply at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

To my surprised, Panoply recognised that data as HDF version 5 rather than netcdf. I can view my data but could not extract specific 'layer' in the data. I then need to open the data in either ArcMap or Idrisi Taiga.

Anybody willing to help? The data can be access at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzzExM8ZYZwxdmI4bk5rSUw0VVE/edit?usp=sharing

Answer 1

It looks like the issue might be that the file is in netCDF-4 format (which is built on top of HDF5 - thus panoply's ID). In general, you cannot convert netCDF-4 into netCDF-3 unless some very specific constraints are met, as their data models are different (see http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/docs/faq.html#fv14 for more info). Luckily, your file is pretty simple and can be put into the netCDF-3 format using the following command:

nccopy -k classic tos_Omon_modmean_rcp26_00.nc tos_Omon_modmean_rcp26_00-nc3.nc

The new file will be in the netCDF-3 classic format, which will likely work with the tools you are using. If you need me to, I can post the converted file for you to download (if you do not have netCDF installed, and thus access to nccopy, on your system).

Cheers!

Sean