Command Line Interface#
The altimetry-downloader-aviso command line interface allows you to interact easily with the Aviso catalog
to explore, inspect and download products.
After installation, the altimetry-downloader-aviso command becomes available in your terminal.
altimetry-downloader-aviso --help
Note
This CLI relies on the Python Interface operations. Please refer to Python Interface for more information about these operations.
Available Commands#
The command line interface provides three main commands:
summary to list available products in the catalog;
details to view detailed metadata for a specific product;
get to download a given product applying filters.
Tip
Use
--helpwith any command to see available options.Use
--verboseor--quietoptions to adjust logging verbosity.
List available products#
Display a summary of the available Aviso products in the catalog using summary command.
Usage:
altimetry-downloader-aviso summary
This will print a concise overview of the products (short names and titles).
Example:
$ altimetry-downloader-aviso summary
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Short Name ┃ Title ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ L4_exp_with_SWOT │ Experimental Products: Multimission Gridded (with SWOT) Level-4 Sea Surface Heights and Velocities │
│ SWOT_L2_LR_SSH_Basic │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-2 KaRIn Low Rate SSH - Basic │
│ SWOT_L2_LR_SSH_Expert │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-2 KaRIn Low Rate SSH - Expert │
│ SWOT_L2_LR_SSH_Unsmoothed │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-2 KaRIn Low Rate SSH - Unsmoothed │
│ SWOT_L2_LR_SSH_WindWave │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-2 KaRIn Low Rate SSH - WindWave │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-3 Low Rate SSH - Basic │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Expert │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-3 Low Rate SSH - Expert │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Technical │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-3 Low Rate SSH - Technical │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Unsmoothed │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-3 Low Rate SSH - Unsmoothed │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_WIND_WAVE_Extended │ Wind & Wave product SWOT Level-3 WindWave - Extended │
│ SWOT_L3_LR_WIND_WAVE_Light │ Wind & Wave product SWOT Level-3 WindWave - Light │
└───────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
View product details#
Retrieve detailed metadata for a specific Aviso product using details command.
Usage:
altimetry-downloader-aviso details <product_short_name>
Example:
$ altimetry-downloader-aviso details SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Product: SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ │
│ ┃ Field ┃ Value ┃ │
│ ┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩ │
│ │ Id │ aa2927ad-d1d6-4867-89d3-1311bc11e6bb │ │
│ │ Title │ Altimetry product SWOT Level-3 Low Rate SSH - Basic │ │
│ │ Short Name │ SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic │ │
│ │ Keywords │ Platform(s): SWOT, SWOT │ │
│ │ │ Instrument(s): POSEIDON-3C, KaRIn │ │
│ │ │ Parameters(s): Sea Surface Topography │ │
│ │ │ Spatial resolution: 2 km │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ Abstract │ The SWOT L3_LR_SSH product provides ocean topography measurements obtained from the SWOT KaRIn and nadir altimeter instruments, merged into a single variable. The dataset includes measurements from KaRIn swaths on both sides of the image, while the measurements from the │ │
│ │ │ nadir altimeter are located in the central columns. In the areas between the nadir track and the two KaRIn swaths, as well as on the outer edges of each swath (restricted to cross-track distances ranging from 10 to 60 km), default values are expected. │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ SWOT L3_LR_SSH is a cross-calibrated product from multiple missions that contains only the ocean topography content necessary for thematic research (e.g., oceanography, geodesy) and related applications. This product is designed to be simple and ready-to-use, and can be │ │
│ │ │ combined with other altimetry missions. The SWOT L3_LR_SSH product is a research-orientated extension of the L2_LR_SSH product, distributed by the SWOT project (NASA/JPL and CNES) and managed by the SWOT Science Team project DESMOS. │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ The "Basic" version of SWOT L3_LR_SSH (the "Expert" version is the subject of a separate metadata sheet) includes only the SSH anomalies and mean dynamic topography. │ │
│ │ Level │ L3 │ │
│ │ URL │ https://tds%40odatis-ocean.fr:odatis@tds-odatis.aviso.altimetry.fr/thredds/catalog/L3/SWOT_KARIN-L3_LR_SSH.html │ │
│ │ DOI │ https://doi.org/10.24400/527896/A01-2023.017 │ │
│ │ Last Update │ 2025-11-26 23:00:00+00:00 │ │
│ │ Last Version │ v3.0 │ │
│ │ Credit │ CDS-AVISO │ │
│ │ Organisation │ AVISO │ │
│ │ Contact │ aviso@altimetry.fr │ │
│ │ Resolution │ 2 km │ │
│ │ Temporal extent │ 2023-03-29 00:00:00, None │ │
│ │ Geographic extent │ -180.0, 180.0, -80.0, 80.0 │ │
│ └───────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
Download a product#
Download a given Aviso product using get command.
Usage:
altimetry-downloader-aviso get <product_short_name> --output <directory> [--cycle <comma separated values/ranges>>] [--pass <comma separated values/ranges>] [--start <YYYY-MM-DD>] [--end <YYYY-MM-DD>] [--version <product version>]
Example cycle/pass filter:
Use --cycle and --pass options to select mission cycle(s) and half-orbit(s) number(s).
This command downloads Swot LR L3 Basic, cycle number 7, half-orbits 12-13, and stores the requested files to /aviso_dir.
$ altimetry-downloader-aviso get SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic --output aviso_dir --cycle 7 --pass 12,13
Downloaded files (2) :
- aviso_dir/SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic_007_012_20231123T193011_20231123T202137_v3.0.nc
- aviso_dir/SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic_007_013_20231123T202138_20231123T211304_v3.0.nc
Note
You can provide multiple values/ranges for --cycle and --pass options, separated by commas (e.g., --cycle 5,7-9,12).
Example with time filter:
Use --start and --end options to filter files by date range.
This command downloads Swot LR L3 Basic, in the period from 2025-01-01 to 2025-01-02, cycle number 26, and stores the requested files to /aviso_dir.
$ altimetry-downloader-aviso get SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic --output aviso_dir --start 2025-01-01 --end 2025-01-02 --cycle 26
Downloaded files (2) :
- aviso_dir/SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic_007_012_20231123T193011_20231123T202137_v3.0.nc
- aviso_dir/SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic_007_013_20231123T202138_20231123T211304_v3.0.nc
Caution
A request with only start / --end filters will take more time to compute, since it needs to browse all files to find ones included in the date range. Please provide a --cycle filter when possible.
Example with version filter:
By default, the latest version of the product is downloaded. Use --version option to specify a different version.
This command downloads Swot LR L3 Basic, cycle number 7, half-orbit 12, version 1.0.2, and stores the requested files to /aviso_dir.
$ altimetry-downloader-aviso get SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic --output aviso_dir --cycle 7 --pass 12 --version 1.0.2
Downloaded files (1) :
- aviso_dir/SWOT_L3_LR_SSH_Basic_007_012_20231123T193011_20231123T202137_v1.0.2.nc