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You only need to go through this procedure once, before you can use the CDS API on macOS to programmatically download data from either the Climate Data Store (CDS) or the Atmosphere Data Store (ADS).

Prerequisites

  1. Have a CDS or ADS account. If you don't have an account, please self register at the CDS registration page or the ADS registration, whichever is appropriate.

  2. Option 1: use Python 2.

    Expand
    titleTest Python 2 and install pip
    1. If you want to use Python 2, then it should come with your macOS. Open a Terminal and type command 'python'. You should see something like 'Python 2.7.10 (default, Feb 22 2019, 21:17:52)'. Type 'Control + D' to quit.
    2. For Python 2, run commands below to install pip:

      1. curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py

      2. python get-pip.py


  3. Option 2: use Python 3. You are recommended to follow instructions here using Homebrew.

    Expand
    titleInstall Python3 through Homebrew
    1. xcode-select --install
    2. /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
    3. brew install python3

      Option 2: use Python 3. You are recommended to follow instructions here using Homebrew.


  4. Optional: you are recommended to set up a virtual environment. Python 3 comes up with this feature. For Python 2, you may want to use Virtualenv. This is out of the scope of this knowledge base article.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Login to CDS (or Login to ADS) and copy the 2 line code displayed on this page for CDS users (or this page for ADS users). The code shows a url and your own uid:API key.
  2. Run 'touch ~/.cdsapirc' in your Terminal to create your key file and copy the two lines you see in 1 to the file.
  3. Install the CDS API client using pip:  'pip install cdsapi'. You should run this under a Terminal.
  4. Once the CDS API client is installed, it can be used to request data from the datasets listed in the CDS catalogueand ADS catalogues. It is necessary to agree to the Terms of Use of every datasets that you intend to download. Attached to each dataset download form, the 'Show API request' button displays the python code to be used. Examples are also shown here.

If you are getting connection issues, we recommend that in the first instance you check your proxy settings with your local IT team.

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