Content area

Abstract

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) datasets provide a rich source of climatological data. However, their Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) structure can be a barrier for researchers who are not experienced with specialized data tools or programming languages. To address this challenge, we developed ncPick, a lightweight, Windows-based application designed to make ERA5 data more accessible and easier to use. The software enables users to load NetCDF files, select points of interest manually or through shapefiles, and export the data directly to Comma-separated values (CSV) format for further processing in common tools such as Excel, R, or within ncPick itself. Additional modules allow for quick visualization, descriptive statistics, interpolation, and the generation of time-of-day heatmaps, as well as practical data handling functions such as merging and downsampling CSV files based on the time-axis. Validation tests confirmed that ncPick outputs are consistent with those from established tools (such as Panoply). The toolkit was found to be stable across different Windows systems and suitable for a range of datasets. While it has limitations with very large files and does not include automated data download for version 1 of the software, ncPick offers an accessible solution for researchers, students, and other professionals seeking a reliable and intuitive way to work with ERA5 NetCDF data.

Details

1009240
Business indexing term
Title
ncPick: A Lightweight Toolkit for Extracting, Analyzing, and Visualizing ECMWF ERA5 NetCDF Data
Publication title
Data; Basel
Volume
10
Issue
11
First page
178
Number of pages
11
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
Place of publication
Basel
Country of publication
Switzerland
Publication subject
e-ISSN
23065729
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2025-11-02
Milestone dates
2025-09-04 (Received); 2025-10-31 (Accepted)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
02 Nov 2025
ProQuest document ID
3275509338
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/i-ncpick-lightweight-toolkit-extracting-analyzing/docview/3275509338/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2025-11-26
Database
ProQuest One Academic