This section provides step by step information how to use the Hub to generate data products for use with the OpenIFS global 3D forecasting model and the OpenIFS single-column model.
1 - Access and login
Please note that if you are registered with ECMWF as an OpenIFS user then you should already have access to the Data Hub.
The OpenIFS Data Hub can be accessed here:
You will need an ECMWF user account to access the Data Hub.
Note: Your personal ECMWF login credentials are required to use the Data Hub. Your ECMWF username needs first to be added to the OpenIFS user policy. If you are a new user of the Data Hub please contact OpenIFS support by generating a support ticket, mentioning your affiliation, your institutional email address, and your personal ECMWF username. |
2 - The Dashboard page
After the initial user authentication you will reach the Data Hub's dashboard page which shows your data request history.
To submit a new request for initial data press the "New Request" button at the top of the page. This will open a drop-down menu with several data product options:
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Clicking on either of these options will open a new web page containing a data request form.
3 - How to complete the data request form
The data request form is specific to the type of data product. If you need help to complete the form, please follow the links below where you can find a description of the input parameters for each form:
Examples for completing the request form
4 - Submitting your data request
Once the information in the data request form has been completed, the request can be submitted to the Hub by pressing the Submit button.
Once this button has been pressed, the request information is added to the queue and the data generation process can begin. The request history dashboard page is shown.
Some preliminary checking is done while entering the request data.
If the dashboard page is not shown after pressing the submit button check your input fields for any errors. |
Further consistency checks will be carried out once the request has been accepted. Note that any user choices resulting in an unworkable data requests will be identified early in the process and the user request will be aborted.
A maximum data volume of 500,000 MB is permitted for a single request. Any requests exceeding this data volume will be aborted. For reference, an initial data request at the current operational grid resolution (Tco1279L137) for a single start date with 10 days forecast length has an (uncompressed) data volume of approximately 20,000 MB.
5 - Checking the request progress
After submitting a request the dashboard page is displayed again showing the user's request history.
- A new request entry has appeared at the top of the request history.
A limit for open data requests (having status "new" or "in progress") applies per user and once this limit is reached no further requests can be submitted until some of the user's requests have completed or aborted. - At regular time intervals the system checks for new data requests. Once the request has been picked up its status indicator updates to "processing".
- Each request line entry has on the right side of the page a link to a corresponding Details page.
Clicking on this link will open another web page with information about the data request details and its generation progress.
On this Details Page for a selected request the following information is shown:
- The Details box in the upper left area shows the main request properties and its current status. After completion a download link for the data tarball will be displayed. For relaxation files the link redirects to the ECPDS portal where the generated data can be inspected.
Note that the download link has an expiry time stamp. After this expiry time the download link will be no longer active, by this time the generated data is removed from the storage area and is not available for download any longer. - The Config box on the right side of the Details Page displays the parameters that were selected previously in the input form.
- The Changelog box displays the status history of the request with the current status on top. Any potential errors or other reasons for aborting the request will be shown here.
6 - How do I know when my data will be available?
- You will be notified by email at the address linked to your ECMWF user-ID once your data request has completed (or if the request has aborted).
- You can also login to the Data Hub dashboard page and manually check the progress of your requests. This is described also in the next section below.
- Once completed, the data of your request is available for download for a limited time (see the expiry time stamp). After this expiry time the download link will be disabled and the produced data files can no longer be retrieved.
- The request history remains in your dashboard page for your reference, even after the data file download link has expired.
6.1 - Downloading initial experiment data for OpenIFS and the Single-Column Model
Initial experiment data (both, for meteo-only and for meteo+atmos composition) is packaged into a single file tgz archive on the Data Hub staging area, ready for download.
The Data Hub provides the download link that is displayed both on the Details Page for the request, and also on the Dashboard Page.
The download link will remain active until the request's expiry date which is shown on the Details Page. After the expiry date it is no longer possible to access the data file which will then be removed from the staging area.
6.2 - Downloading relaxation files from ECPDS
Relaxation files are staged on the ECMWF Production Data Store (ECPDS) and all relaxation files (generated by any user) can be inspected there. The default lifetime of these files is 90 days from their time of upload.
Access to the ECPDS portal requires authentication. You should login with your ECMWF username. Instead of your password you will need to use a generated 6-digit TOTP one-time access security token. The token can be generated using a smartphone with an authenticator app.
To access the data click on the link in the request details page, or alternatively go to https://aux.ecmwf.int/ and authenticate with your ECMWF username and the TOTP token (as password).
The web link that is provided after the data request has completed will redirect to the ECPDS portal and (following user authentication) the generated data is stored there as individual files which can be downloaded through the web browser.
To download multiple files more efficiently you can also connect with and ftp client (e.g. ftp, sftp, lftp etc) to: sftp aux.ecmwf.int
After connecting to ECPDS with the ftp client, the relaxation files are located in: odh/02/relax/<cycle>/ERA5_<grid-resolution>/<year>/
An example retrieval using sftp is shown below. In this example relaxation files were produced for the year 2024 at TL159 with 60 vertical model levels:
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