Global Earth Relief Grids — GMT 6.1.0 documentation

# Global Earth Relief Grids

In addition to the GSHHG coastlines, rivers, and borders data built into some modules (coast, gmtselect, grdlandmask), we offer several remote global data grids that you can access via our remote file mechanism. The first time you access one of these files we will download the file from the GMT server and save it to the server directory under your GMT user directory (~/.gmt). We then read the file from there. Should you have limited space then there are ways to control how much is downloaded (see below).

## Usage

We have processed and reformatted publicly available global relief grids and standardized their file names. In GMT, you may access a global relief grid (or a subset only by using the -R option) by specifying the special name

> @earth_relief_rru[_reg]

where rr is a 2-digit integer specifying the grid resolution in the unit u, where u is either d, m or s for arc degree, arc minute or arc second, respectively. Optionally, you can append _g or _p to specifically get the gridline-registered or pixel-registered version (if they both exist). If reg is not specified we will return the pixel-registered version unless only the gridline-registered file is available. The following codes for rru and the optional reg are supported (dimensions are listed for pixel-registered grids; gridline-registered grids increment dimensions by one):

Code | Dimensions | Reg | Size | Description
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
01d | 360 x 180 | g,p | 128 KB | 1 arc degree global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 111 km)
30m | 720 x 360 | g,p | 435 KB | 30 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 55 km)
20m | 1080 x 540 | g,p | 918 KB | 20 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 37 km)
15m | 1440 x 720 | g,p | 1.6 MB | 15 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 28 km)
10m | 2160 x 1080 | g,p | 3.4 MB | 10 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 18 km)
06m | 3600 x 1800 | g,p | 8.8 MB | 6 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 10 km)
05m | 4320 x 2160 | g,p | 13 MB | 5 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 9 km)
04m | 5400 x 2700 | g,p | 19 MB | 4 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 7.5 km)
03m | 7200 x 3600 | g,p | 33 MB | 3 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 5.6 km)
02m | 10800 x 5400 | g,p | 71 MB | 2 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 3.7 km)
01m | 21600 x 10800 | g,p | 258 MB | 1 arc minute global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 1.9 km)
30s | 43200 x 21600 | g,p | 935 MB | 30 arc second global relief (SRTM15+V2.1 @ 1.0 km)
15s | 86400 x 43200 | p | 3.2 GB | 15 arc second global relief (SRTM15+V2.1)
03s | 432000 x 216000 | g | 6.8 GB | 3 arc second global relief (SRTM3S)
01s | 1296000 x 432000 | g | 41 GB | 1 arc second global relief (SRTM1S)

All of these data will, when downloaded, be placed in your ~/.gmt/server directory, with the earth_relief files being placed in an `earth/earth_relief` sub-directory.

## Technical Information

As you see, the 30s and lower resolutions are all derivatives of Scripps’ SRTM15+V2.1 grid (Tozer et al., 2019). We have downsampled it via Cartesian Gaussian filtering to prevent aliasing while preserving the latitude-dependent resolution in the original 15 arc sec grid. The full (6 sigma) filter-widths are indicated in parenthesis. The 3 and 1 arc second data are the SRTM 1x1 degree tiles from NASA. To improve responsiveness, the larger files (i.e., for grid spacings 05m and smaller) have been tiled as well. When the 06m or lower resolution grids are accessed the first time we download the entire file, regardless of your selected region (-R). However, for the tiled data sets we only download the tiles that are inside your selected region the first time they are referenced. Note: The 3 and 1 arc second grids only extend to latitudes ±60˚ and are only available over land. When these grids are accessed as @earth_relief_01s or @earth_relief_03s we will automatically up-sample the relevant @earth_relief_15s tiles to fill in the missing ocean values. If you just want the original land-only SRTM tiles you may use the special names @srtm_relief_03s or @srtm_relief_01s instead. Almost all grids are available in both gridline- and pixel-registered formats except the original pixel-registered SRTM15+V2.1 (here called @earth_relief_15s) and the gridline-registered SRTM tiles.

The dimensions above reflect the number of nodes covered by the global grids and the sizes refer to the files on the remote server. For single grids, these are already in the final netCDF-4 compressed short int grids, making the files much smaller than their original source files without any loss of precision. To minimize download speed, the dataset tiles are all stored as JPEG2000 images on the GMT server due to superior compression, but once downloaded to your server directory they are converted to the same short int compressed netCDF4 format for easier access. This step uses our GDAL bridge and thus requires that you have built GMT with GDAL support and that your GDAL distribution was built with openjpeg support.

Histogram of compression rates for the SRTM 1x1 arc second tiles. 100% reflects the full short integer size of an uncompressed tile (~25 Mb). As can be seen, on average a JPEG2000 tile is only half the size of the corresponding fully compressed (level 9) netCDF short int grid. This is why we have chosen the JP2 format for tiles on the server.

## Data Space Concerns

There are several ways you can control the amount of space taken up by your own server directory:

1. You can set an upper file size limit for download via the GMT default setting GMT_DATA_SERVER_LIMIT; the default is unlimited.

2. You can remove the entire server directory via gmt clear data.

3. You can be clever and set up a crontab job that deletes data files you have not touched in, say, 6 months (or some other interval).

## Offline Usage

If you anticipate to be without an Internet connection (or a very slow one), you can download all the remote files prior to losing connection, using the module gmtget. You can choose which data to download and limit it to grid spacings larger or equal to a limit, and you can minimize space on your computer by requesting the JPEG2000 tiles not be converted until GMT is accessing them. Here are some examples of usage. Download the entire cache directory used in examples and tests:

    gmt get -Dcache

To get all the data for Earth but only for 30 arc sec and coarser, and leave as JPEG2000 tiles:

    gmt get -Ddata=earth -I30s -N

As shown in the table, the largest dataset may take some time to download the data from GMT server. Be patient!

## Data and Cache Updates

Remote datasets and remote cache files are updated from time to time as it is our aim to provide only the very latest version of the data. This means we (a) do not support multiple versions of a dataset (you must obtain earlier versions of any published data sets elsewhere), (b) as GMT detects a new version on the server it will download it the next time you access the remote data set and it will overwrite any previous version, and (c) any data set or file we deem obsolete will be removed from the server, and hence it will also be removed from your .gmt server and cache folders when the syncing occurs. This is particularly true of the cache files that may come and go. If there are any cache files there that are important to you then we recommend you place a copy of them in another folder. Syncing occurs at most once a day and only when you actively use GMT.

## Data References

1. SRTM15+V2.1 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019EA000658].

2. SRTMGL3 tiles: [https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/measures/measures_products_table/srtmgl3_v003].

3. SRTMGL1 tiles: [https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/measures/measures_products_table/srtmgl1_v003].