Hi Lennart,

the problem you have here is that the input file contains 1080 band of 720x360 pixels. You need to extract them band by band. I was able to reproduce the gdal error (see attached image).

here is the correct command line (see attachement)

gdal_translate -of AAIGrid -b 1 "RR_C3S-glob-agric_miroc-esm-chem_rcp2p6_dek_20110101-20401231_v1.nc" test.asc

I added the option -b 1 to specify to gdal that I want to extract band 1.

So you need to do it for every 1080 band.

So in total you will create 1080 asc files.

I hope this answer your question

Best Regards,

Iskander

If you are familiar with R - programming, it is a lot easier to convert netCDF files to csv or txt in R, using the ncdf4 package. I have previously used ERA5 data from CDS and have successfully converted this into csv.

Please find the link to the article where It is mentioned in detail on how to convert netCDF to csv or text.

I hope this helps.

Link to the code :

https://pravashtiwarigeop.wixsite.com/weathercode/post/netcdf-data-to-text-or-comma-seperated-variable-csv-in-r-easy-and-quick

IT CAN BE DONE ON Arc GIS......

I agree with Pravash Tiwari 's answer. This is easy in R. Look for the ncdf package in R. There are a lot of tutorials available online.

In addition, you can also use GrADS or CDO coupled with bash script in Linux. GrADS is a plotting program while CDO is mostly for netcdf processing. But you can use both to save the output as an ascii file.

I agree, GrADS can deal with that.

Iskander Benhadj Try to do it like you say ... but it says "invalid syntax" ... I have more variables and also returns me same error when I have only one variable... I don't know if you can help me. Here is my script. Thank you

import netCDF4 as nt

import numpy as np

import gdal

ds = nt.Dataset('C:/Users/palom/OneDrive/Environmental_Manta/MaxEnt_Manta/NetCDF/Input/30Km/global-analysis-forecast-bio-001-028-daily_1593164390191.nc')

print(ds.variables.keys()) # get all variable names

dpt = ds.variables['depth'] # depth variable

print(dpt)

# transform NetCDF to ASCII using GDAL

gdal_translate -of AAIGrid 'C:/Users/palom/OneDrive/Environmental_Manta/MaxEnt_Manta/NetCDF/Input/global-analysis-forecast-bio-001-028-monthly_1587842253023.nc' prueba.asc

Hi Angela,

The gdal_translate is not meant to be used within a python script. It is to be used as command line in a a terminal.

Please download the gdal binaries and apply the same command line as in my previous post. Please do not forget the option -b to select the band you need to extract.

Best

Iskander

Iskander Benhadj Do you know how I can do loops in GDAL or something similar? Do I need phyton?

I have been using R to do just this for climate files with many layers. I've written a blog on this - https://luciazwatts.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/how-to-using-met-office-ukcp18-5km-climate-projections/ - the code will work for other files (not just the 5km UKCP18 data) hope this helps!

Ángela Palomino Gaviria

You need to use python and make a loop for all bands. In each loop you need to call gdal command line via subprocess (see below the python syntaxe)

proc = subprocess.run(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True, universal_newlines=True)

and cmd is the command line I showed in my first figure. Please note that for each band, you need to change the option -b in the gdal command line.

I hope this helps.

Iskander