How to use ncplot

Using ncplot is very easy. It lets you plot the contents of a NetCDF automatically. We will illustrate this by plotting sea surface temperature from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s COBE2 dataset. To plot a file in Python, preferably a Jupyter notebook, do the following:

from ncplot import view
view("https://psl.noaa.gov/thredds/dodsC/Datasets/COBE2/sst.mon.ltm.1981-2010.nc", vars = "sst", coast = True)

In this case, we use the coast argument to ensure the world’s coastlines are displayed.

There is also built in support for xarray datasets:

import ncplot.xarray
import xarray as xr
ds = xr.open_dataset("https://psl.noaa.gov/thredds/dodsC/Datasets/COBE2/sst.mon.ltm.1981-2010.nc")
ds["sst"].ncplot.view(vars = "sst", coast = True)

ncplot operates as a command line tool, letting you view the contents of a NetCDF file on a website. All you need to do is provide the file you want to look at:

$ ncplot foo.nc