$Header: /cvsroot/nco/nco/doc/ANNOUNCE,v 1.289 2008/05/11 20:30:37 zender Exp $ -*-text-*-

The netCDF operators NCO version 3.9.5 are ready. 

http://nco.sf.net (Homepage)
http://dust.ess.uci.edu/nco (Homepage "mirror")

This release primarily extends the Multi-slabbing Algorithm (MSA)
to operators beyond ncks to ncbo, ncea, ncecat, ncflint, ncpdq, ncra,
and ncrcat. Why might you care? MSA allows one to obtain and operate
on irregular hyperslabs. The fastest/simplest NCO way to process data
from cell-based (e.g., geodesic) grids or multiple station timeseries,
for example, is to use MSA to specify the data.  
This can be done two ways. First with the traditional -d argument

ncra -d lon,10.,15. -d lon,15.,20. -d lon,80.,90. in.nc out.nc

Note the multiple hyperslabs (multi-slabs) in the lon dimension.

Second, NCO now supports the -X argument to specify CF auxiliary
coordinate variables. The "coordinates" attribute of variables 
can specify the (irregular, cell-based) latitude and longitude
coordinates (so-labeled by their standard_name attributes).

ncra -O -X 0.,180.,-30.,30. -v gds_3dvar in.nc out.nc

For more details, see

http://nco.sf.net#msa
http://nco.sf.net#aux

The MSA/-X work was encouraged and aided by Karen Schuchardt of PNL, 
who will use it to analyze global cloud resolving model results:

http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?id=416

A. Multi-slabbing (MSA) available on most operators (Henry Butowsky)
   ncbo, ncea, ncecat, ncflint, ncpdq, ncra, and ncrcat support MSA
   http://nco.sf.net#msa
   http://nco.sf.net#aux

B. ncap2 builds on Solaris (Henry Butowsky)

C. Prevent copying global metadata with -M, --metadata switch on
   ncecat 
   http://nco.sf.net#ncecat

D. Fix netCDF4-enabled NCO builds on cygwin. Thanks to Mark Hadfield. 

E. Pre-built, up-to-date, Debian Sid & Ubuntu binaries are available.
   http://nco.sf.net#debian

F. Pre-built, up-to-date, RPM packages are available.
   http://nco.sf.net#rpm

G. Did you try SWAMP (Script Workflow Analysis for MultiProcessing)?
   SWAMP efficiently schedules and executes NCO scripts on remote servers: 

   http://swamp.googlecode.com

   SWAMP can work with with any command-line operator analysis scripts-- 
   not just NCO. If you must transfer lots of data from a server to your
   client before you analyze it, then SWAMP may speed things up.
   Try SWAMP give us your feedback.

H. Reminder: NCO support for netCDF4 features is tracked at

   http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#nco4

   NCO currently supports netCDF4 atomic data types and compression.
   NCO 3.9.5 with netCDF4 support should work with HDF5 1.8 final
   and netCDF4 snapshot2008022009 and newer.

   export NETCDF4_ROOT=/usr/local/netcdf4 # Set netCDF4 location
   cd ~/nco;./configure --enable-netcdf4  # Configure mechanism -or-
   cd ~/nco/bld;./make NETCDF4=Y allinone # Old Makefile mechanism

Enjoy,
Charlie