GRIIDC’s ERDDAP Server

With over 1,900 completed datasets, GRIIDC has become a leader as a data provider in the Gulf of Mexico. More than a repository, GRIIDC wants the data we house to be re-used! Therefore, updating our software and technology in ways that can improve the user-interface and user-interaction has been a priority for the GRIIDC program. As we celebrate Dr. Matt Howard’s life, it is an honor to officially introduce the GRIIDC ERDDAP (Environmental Research Division Data Access Program) server. The GRIIDC ERDDAP server is one of Matt’s legacies to the program, as he led the efforts to implement this important tool to enable the reuse of gridded and tabular environmental data.

ERDDAP is a data server that converts, catalogs, and serves scientific data with a user-friendly interface that enables a powerful data distribution tool. ERDDAP can interact with different types of data servers and offers the user an easy way to search, explore, and download data in a variety of data formats. It also allows the user to subset data, access data from multiple datasets simultaneously, and create maps and graphs. Data is accessible through an easy to use web-server interface or by using OPeNDAP (Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol) enabled software packages such as Matlab, IDL, and Python.

The development of GRIIDC’s ERDDAP server began in 2016 and became fully operational in October 2017. GRIIDC’s ERDDAP system is hosted by DigitalOcean™ virtual servers, also known as “droplets,” and managed through our partnership with Texas A&M University. Using a virtual server allows for simplicity, high performance, and scalability as data storage needs increase.

At the moment, GRIIDC’s ERDDAP server has more than 125 oceanographic datasets. Most of the data hosted includes oceanographic data such as temperature, salinity, ocean currents, chlorophyll-a, dissolved oxygen, and circulation models. GRIIDC is working actively to make as many datasets as possible available through the ERDDAP server in addition to GRIIDC’s primary interface. This is a major step forward for making data easily accessible and publicly available for the Gulf of Mexico.

Check out the ERDDAP server today: https://erddap.griidc.org/erddap