Large data granules often contain more information than a user needs to complete a given task, and it can be challenging and time-consuming to extract just the data points that are relevant to the user. To make subsetting easier, Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP) provides a way for NASA users to download only the Earth data they need.
In a new Earthdata tutorial, learn how to use OPeNDAP to pre-select a subset of physical variables stored within a larger granule, pre-specify the time range and domain range of interest within the granule, and download the data as NetCDF4 or CSV. The steps in the tutorial use a Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) dataset in Earthdata Search as an example, and provide users with a versatile skill set than can be applied to a wide range of datasets archived by NASA.