ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels

This dataset is a curated subset of pressure levels quantities derived from ECMWF’s ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels.

Built upon the Climate Data Store (CDS) version of ERA5, this dataset is distributed as a Zarr archive. It is designed to offer a fast, highly accessible alternative for querying ERA5 pressure levels global reanalysis data. The current subset only includes pressure levels 1000, 925, 850, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, 70, 50, 30, 20, 10, 5, 1 [hPa].

📊 Chunking Specifications

To optimize data access performance for regional and time-series analyses, the dataset employs a spatio-temporal chunking scheme of 60 days × 15° latitude × 15° longitude. This corresponds to an array chunk shape of 1440 (valid_time) × 60 (latitude) × 60 (longitude).

⚠️ Changelog

This dataset was recently migrated to Zarr v3. As part of this migration, the chunking scheme was changed to improve data access performance. See Chunking Specifications for further details.

To access this dataset, you will need a Zarr v3-compatible library (e.g., zarr-python >= 3.x). Python users can upgrade their environment using: pip install "zarr>3".

The previous version of the dataset is still available here.

How to download the data

The default (and preferred) way to access the data requires accessing the api.earthdatahub.destine.eu domain and a valid API key.

Method 1: quick access

It is possible to include the token directly in the URL.

1import xarray as xr
2
3xr.open_dataset(
4    "https://edh:<your personal access token>@api.earthdatahub.destine.eu/era5/era5-pressure-levels-v0.zarr",
5    chunks={},
6    engine="zarr",
7)

Method 2: advanced access

The Python snippet gather the token from a netrc file.

It's required to before running the code snippet below.
1import xarray as xr
2
3xr.open_dataset(
4    "https://api.earthdatahub.destine.eu/era5/era5-pressure-levels-v0.zarr",
5    storage_options={"client_kwargs":{"trust_env":True}},
6    chunks={},
7    engine="zarr",
8)

Variables

Short NameUnitsDescription
cc
(0 - 1)

Fraction of cloud cover

ciwc
kg kg-1

Specific cloud ice water content

clwc
kg kg-1

Specific cloud liquid water content

crwc
kg kg-1

Specific rain water content

cswc
kg kg-1

Specific snow water content

d
s-1

Divergence

o3
kg kg-1

Ozone mass mixing ratio

pv
K m2 kg-1 s-1

Potential vorticity

q
kg kg-1

Specific humidity

r
%

Relative humidity

t
K

Temperature

u
m s-1

U component of wind

v
m s-1

V component of wind

vo
s-1

Vorticity (relative)

w
Pa s-1

Vertical velocity

z
m2 s-2

Geopotential

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