Demonstration (part 2): downloading from the Copernicus Climate Data Store

This is the hands-on heart of the chapter: a live walkthrough of the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS), where Ebenezer Nyadjro navigates the portal step by step. Follow along on your own computer if you can.

The demonstration shows:

• Finding the portal – the CDS landing page (a quick web search for “Copernicus CDS” or “Climate Data Store” brings it up), and the EU/ECMWF programmes behind it
• Two ways to access data – the graphical interface (GUI), which needs no coding and is what the demo uses, and the API, which gives coding users (e.g. in Python) a personal key to download data programmatically
• Creating a free account – registration asks only for your name, email, and a password. It’s completely free – no charge to register, and no charge to download data, any time. Registering matters because larger data requests are built for you and emailed when ready
• Requesting and downloading data – selecting a dataset, choosing variables, region, and time period, picking the output format (NetCDF), and retrieving the file
• Checking what you downloaded – inspecting the metadata before using the data

By the end, you’ll have seen the whole workflow end to end – and you’ll be able to register and download real atmospheric forcing data yourself, for free. This is the practical skill the week has been building toward, now complete for both ocean and atmospheric data.