I acquired the time series climatology data and have got the 3.2 version of cru data sets but am unable to convert these netcdf files to either ascii or geotiff format. Can anybody help me please?
use GDAL tools, specifically gdal_translate. Or you can use GRASS, which incorporates GDAL. (GDAL = Geographic Data Abstraction Library: http://www.gdal.org)
You can use Global Mapper, when you choose "open your own data file" in th type of file list choose "Netcdf/IBCAO....." to open your file. after opening you go to File menu, and "Export" and choose "Export Elevation Grid Format", in the "Select Export Format" dialog list you choose Arc asii grid file or Geotiff, and continu always with OK, type your file name and finaly "save".
You can also use the Climate Data Operators: CDO ( https://code.zmaw.de/projects/cdo ) . It is a very complete suite for data manipulation included regridding and converting among formats. For ascii file is very simple: cdo outputf,%8.4g,8 ifile where is the format and 8 is the number of desired columns.
You can try this online converter http://converter.mygeodata.eu/raster which allow you to convert bulk amount of data from one type to another. Although I never tried your mentioned types, I have checked, these are possible through this site. Thanks