The BADC help pages now includes a description and tutorial of 
two software packages used extensively in the atmospheric sciences:



* **CDAT** - see <http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/help/software/cdat/>
* **GrADS** - see <http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/help/software/grads/>





We have also made a GrADS/GRIB interface page which is relevant 
to all users of our datasets held in GRIB format. This is located at:


<http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/help/software/grads/grads-grib.html>





Climate Data Analysis Tools (CDAT) is a freely available software 
infrastructure used for analysis, manipulation and plotting of 
atmospheric science (and other) data. It is designed for gridded 
datasets but can also cope with other types.



Below are some key features of CDAT:

* the software is open-source, consisting of a collection of Python modules.
* available for multiple platforms (but not Windows).
* a choice of interfaces: command-line, scripting or graphical user-interface (Visual CDAT (VCDAT)).
* an XML-based format and tools for aggregating large datasets.
* manipulation of large data arrays possible due to use of Python *Numeric* package.
* interfaces to external packages such as the Live Access Server (LAS) for web-based access to datasets.<
/LI>





Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is a freely available package used for analysis,
manipulation and plotting of earth science data. It is designed
for gridded datasets but can also cope with station data.



Below are some key features of GrADS:

* available for multiple platforms as an executable (including Windows).
* accessible by both a command-line and scripting interface.
* support for multiple common data formats.
* significant support for user-defined plotting.
* manipulation of large 4-D datasets.
* a rich set of built-in functions for data manipulation.





Ag Stephens, BADC, 11th September 2003