AERONET file header error

[nchawang]

Hi ESMValtool community,

I wanted to assess some model runs with the aeronet AOD data and was following the process here to download and format the Aeronet data and get a File header error:
ValueError: File header identifier is 'AERONET Version 3', expected 'AERONET Version 3;'

The first command to download flags no error but the second format command flags the error above. The esmvaltool (v2.12.0) is available as a module in the HPC I am working on so I can't make changes to cmorizers/data/formatters/datasets/aeronet.py where the header is defined. Is there a manner to go about it or am I doing something wrong?

Any help in this is much appreciated, thanks!

[jlenh]

Modifying the file header indeed makes the cmorization work. It would be great if you could open a PR to fix this. I am wondering if this error comes from a change in the file being downloaded from the AERONET/NASA website or an initial typo. The formatting seemed to be working when it was merged and for the 2.12 release, so to be determined still.

A potential workaround for you would be to install yourself ESMValTool (see here for instructions), make the modification in the file cmorizers/data/formatters/datasets/aeronet.py to run the cmorizer and produce the desired AERONET cmorized files (do not forget to copy them to your /OBS6/Tier3/AERONET/ folder after ), and then switch back to using the module on your HPC for the rest of your analysis.

Let me know if you run into issues after trying these different steps!

[nchawang]

Hi @jlenh ,

Thanks for your reply and sorry about the late reply, I was away.
I installed esmvaltool, changed the header (removed the colon) and it worked. I shall open a PR for it, thanks a lot for your help! much appreciated!

[valeriupredoi]

done in #4101 - many thanks @nchawang 🍺