Alternative way to quickly get the NLDAS data without running/updating the 01_getNLDAS.R script

[patriciatran]

Hello team!

I was revisiting this code for someone and thought I would share this alternative method in case that's helpful for future tutorials using this repository.

A faster way to run 01_getNLDAS.R that doesn't require updating the links formatting in the Rscript every once in a while.

This requires using the command line and using wget from the command line:

For example:

1. Go on https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=NLDAS as usual
2. Use the filters to find the dataset
3. Click on "Subset/Get data"
4. Refine date ranges
5. Click on Get data
6. Click on "Downloads links list in the lower left pop-up", which creates a txt file with URLs
   

Open the terminal

mkdir NLDAS_data
cd NLDAS_data
wget --user [username] --password [password] -i [text_file_downloaded] --content-disposition

where [text_file_downloaded] is the path to the file downloaded in step 6 above.

--content-disposition ensures the files are not renamed but keep their ".grb" file extension/naming format.