Installation

Install earthkit-data with python3 (>= 3.10) and pip as follows:

python3 -m pip install earthkit-data[polytope]

To use covjson functionality also run:

python3 -m pip install earthkit-data[covjsonkit]

To use any of the visualisations, also install earthkit-plots:

python3 -m pip install earthkit-plots

Installing like this gives you a minimal package which can talk to Polytope. If you want to use more data types or remote services you need to install other optional features of earthkit-data, or just install all of them:

python3 -m pip install earthkit-data[all]

For further details on earthkit-data installation you can visit this dedicated explanation page.

We recommend to create a conda environment for your earthkit installation. This can be done as follows:

envname=earthkit
conda create -n $envname -c conda-forge -y python=3.10
conda activate $envname

python3 -m pip install earthkit-data[polytope]

# To allow easy use with a jupyter notebook run the following
python3 -m pip install ipykernel
python3 -m ipykernel install --user --name=$envname

Users can also create a python venv using the following instructions and requirements file found here:

envname=earthkit

# Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv $envname

# Activate it
source $envname/bin/activate      # macOS/Linux

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# If using Jupyter notebooks, register your environment as a kernel for ipykernel
python3 -m ipykernel install --user --name=$envname

Authentication

To access ECMWF data you need an ECMWF account. This can be created at https://www.ecmwf.int/. Once created, you can find your key at https://api.ecmwf.int/v1/key/.

Copy your API key into your home directory, in a file called ~/.polytopeapirc. Ths file should have the following format:

{
    "user_email" : "<user_email>",
    "user_key" : "<user_key>"
}

You should now be automatically authenticated when using Polytope feature extraction via earthkit-data.

After following these steps, go to the Quick Start guide to begin making requests.