NCO

Description

The netCDF Operators (NCO) is a suite of programs known as operators. Each operator is a standalone, command-line program that is executed at the UNIX shell-level like (e.g., ls or mkdir). The operators take netCDF or HDF4 files as input, then perform a set of operations (e.g., deriving new data, averaging, hyperslabbing, or metadata manipulation) and produce a netCDF file as output. The operators are primarily designed to aid manipulation and analysis of gridded scientific data. The single command style of NCO allows users to manipulate and analyze files interactively and with simple scripts, avoiding the overhead (and some of the power) of a higher-level programming environment. The NCO User’s Guide illustrates their use with examples from the field of climate modeling and analysis.

The operators are as general as netCDF itself; there are no restrictions on the contents of the netCDF or HDF4 file(s) used as input. The internal routines of NCO are completely dynamic, which means that NCO imposes no limit on the number or sizes of dimensions, variables, and files. NCO is designed to be used both interactively and with large batch jobs. The default operator behavior is often sufficient for everyday needs, and there are numerous command-line (i.e., run-time) options, for special cases.

The operators listed below are thoroughly described in the NCO User’s Guide. Note that the “averagers” are misnamed because they perform many nonlinear operations as well (e.g., total, minimum, maximum, RMS).

  • ncap netCDF Arithmetic Processor

  • ncatted netCDF Attribute Editor

  • ncbo netCDF Binary Operator (includes ncadd, ncsubtract, ncmultiply, ncdivide)

  • ncea netCDF Ensemble Averager

  • ncecat netCDF Ensemble Concatenator

  • ncflint netCDF File Interpolator

  • ncks netCDF Kitchen Sink

  • ncpdq netCDF Permute Dimensions Quickly, Pack Data Quietly

  • ncra netCDF Record Averager

  • ncrcat netCDF Record Concatenator

  • ncrename netCDF Renamer

  • ncwa netCDF Weighted Averager

For more information, see the NCO web page.

Use

Phoenix
NCO is not actually on Phoenix, but is rather installed on the cross-compiler, Robin. To use NCO, do a module load nco. To see what modules are available, do a module avail.