ERDDAP Data Server
Getting Data is Easy
ERDDAP makes it easy to access data
ERDDAP is a data server that gives you a simple, consistent way to download data in the format and the spatial and temporal coverage that you want.
Humans and machines can use ERDDAP
ERDDAP is a web application with an interface for people to use. It is also a RESTful web service that allows data access directly from any computer program (e.g. Matlab, R, or webpages).
Make customized maps and graphs
Use ERDDAP to generate .png and .pdf files on-the-fly from gridded and tabular scientific datasets and insert them directly into webpages.
Search for datasets
ERDDAP’s search capabilities allow full text searches of the metadata or searches by metadata categories, such as keywords, standard name, and data type.
ERDDAP Basics
Access ERD’s ERDDAP Server
The Environmental Research Division maintains an ERDDAP server with an extensive collection of environmental datasets. CoastWatch data are drawn from the ERD ERDDAP.
The links below lead to the gridded and tabular data collections, and to a dataset search page:
Sending a Data Request to ERDDAP
The URL specifies your data request
Your query is sent to ERDDAP in a specially formed URL containing the dataset of interest, a description of how you want the data subsetted or graphed, and the file type you want returned to you.
ERDDAP or you make the URL
You may use ERDDAP’s “Data Access” and “Make A Graph” tools to quickly make the URL or bypass the forms by generating the URL by hand or with a computer program or script.
The URLs take the following form
https://baseURL/ datasetID. fileType{ ?query}
- baseURL: to the gridded or tabular dataset
- datasetID: unique identifier of the dataset of interest
- fileType: specifies the type of data file that you want
- query: specify how you want the dataset subsetted
Standard File Formats
Data file types
.asc, .csv, .csvp, .csv0
.das, .dds, .dods, .esriAscii
.fgdc, .graph, .help, .html
.htmlTable, .iso19115, .json, .mat
.nc, .ncHeader, .ncml, .odvTxt
.tsv, .tsvp, .tsv0, .xhtml
Image file types
.geotif, .kml, .pdf, .smallPdf
.largePdf, .png, .smallPng, .largePng
.transPng
ERDDAP Tutorial on YouTube
Extract ocean surface current data from ERDDAP
The video demonstrates how to extract ocean surface current data from ERDDAP and use them for simulated particle tracking in the NOAA GNOME model.