NetCDFs

This section is for dealing with NetCDF (.nc) files. These files require data tables but since they can not be simply opened on the computer using a text editor or Excel, you can use Panoply to explore them or the R commands. However, notice that not all NetCDF files have the attribute table information.

library(ncdf4)
# gets attribute info
atts <- arcticdatautils::get_ncdf4_attributes('filepath')
# preview of View(atts)
atts[1:10,]

The “long_name” can be used to build a definition.

The “units” can be used for either units or the enumerated domain codes.

The “_FillValue” is a missing value code it looks like.

# returns the actual values for a specified attribute
t <- ncdf4::nc_open(filepath)
test <- ncdf4::ncvar_get(t, 'attributeName')
# preview of View(test)
test[1:10]

The formatId in the sysmeta will most likely be netCDF-4, but could be netCDF-3.