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This method is supported on UNIX/Linux and Windows platforms with Python. No assumption should be made regarding service availability and individual user support.

This method allows users to download ECMWF public datasets in a programmatic way.

Install ECMWF key
Install client libraries
Check data availability
Choose dataset
Script examples
Request syntax

To check the availability of ECMWF Public Datasets go to the web interface:

http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/

Using this interface you can discover all the ECMWF Public Datasets that are available from our archive. We strongly recommend you to to navigate through our public datasets to become familiar with their availability. You may select a Public Dataset and start navigating trough its content.

Please take into account some considerations about the content:

Different ECMWF Public Datasets include different "parameters" , "times", and "steps"
In each ECMWF Public Dataset not all the "parameters" are available from all "steps"
In each ECMWF Public Dataset not all the "steps" are available from all "times"

The web interface above will help you to check and understand the availability. For any kind of selections the system will update the attributes in a dynamic way to reflect the current availability. (i.e. if you change the steps some parameters will be added or removed).

We encourage users to use the " View MARS request " feature at the bottom of the page once the selection has been done. Using this MARS request you can build your own Python script. If you are interested on the syntax go to Brief request syntax.

If you click on the ERA-interim http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim_full_daily/ you will get a web page reflecting the availability of this specific Public Dataset as the period that it is available, the forecast steps and the parameters that are available etc.
From this page you have the option to define the values of your requests such as the "date", the "time" the "steps" and the "parameters" that you are interested in.
In the case of ERA-Interim if you select time "06:00:00" only, the system updates the availability of the "steps" dynamically. In that case only the "step" 00 is available (checkable).
Additionally if you select "step" 00 you will see that only a subset of the parameters are now available and only these parameters can now be checked.

Spend some time to understand how it works, make some selections try to execute the MARS scripts.

See Available ECMWF Public Datasets.

See Brief request syntax

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