Analysis of self-describing gridded geoscience data with netCDF Operators (NCO)

The netCDF Operator (NCO) software facilitates manipulation and analysis of gridded 2 geoscience data stored in the self-describing netCDF format. NCO is optimized to efficiently 3 analyze large multi-dimensional datasets spanning many files. Researchers and data centers 4 often use NCO to analyze and serve observed and modeled geoscience data including satel5 lite observations and weather, air quality, and climate forecasts. NCO’s functionality includes 6 shared memory threading, a message-passing interface, network transparency, and an inter7 preted language parser. NCO treats data files as a high level data type whose contents may 8 be simultaneously manipulated by a single command. Institutions and data portals often use 9 NCO for middleware, to hyperslab and aggregate dataset requests, while scientific researchers 10 use NCO to perform three general functions: arithmetic operations, data permutation and com11 pression, and metadata editing. We describe NCO’s design philosophy and primary features, 12 illustrate techniques to solve common geoscience and environmental data analysis problems, 13 and suggest ways to design gridded datasets that can ease their subsequent analysis. 14