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coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/

NOAA ERDDAP CoastWatch

Freeauth: noneCustom#osint#maritime#ocean#sst#erddap✓ verified Nov 5, 2026

NOAA ERDDAP CoastWatch

NOAA's Environmental Research Division (ERD) CoastWatch ERDDAP server exposes oceanographic datasets (sea-surface temperature, winds, chlorophyll and related fields) through a uniform web service that can return HTML tables, CSV, NetCDF, JSON and other formats without an account. Dataset-specific licence metadata may apply; see each dataset's license field on the server.

Coverage

Many CoastWatch/ERD ocean datasets via tabledap and griddap. Spatial and temporal coverage vary by dataset; the server index lists available datasets and their time ranges. No account is required for the public ERDDAP endpoints checked.

Verdict

This is a keyless ocean-data access layer for adding SST, wind and related environmental context to shipping routes and fishing grounds, useful next to NDBC buoys and Copernicus Marine. Prefer dataset-level license metadata on ERDDAP over assuming every product is unrestricted, and keep request volume modest on shared government infrastructure.

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Use in your agent

Query NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP tabledap index JSON into pandas. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 5, 2026.

Raw skill file (/skills/noaa-erddap-coastwatch.md)Also in our MCP server: call get_ingestion_skill with {"slug": "noaa-erddap-coastwatch"}.

Access

  • No account or key for the public ERDDAP endpoints.

Request

bash
curl 'https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/index.json?page=1&itemsPerPage=5'

Format

ERDDAP index JSON listing tabledap datasets (columnNames + rows table).

Load into pandas and Parquet

Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.

python
"""NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP: sample tabledap index. No key.

Check each dataset's license metadata before redistributing extracts.
"""
import requests
import pandas as pd

URL = "https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/index.json"
r = requests.get(URL, params={"page": 1, "itemsPerPage": 5}, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
payload = r.json()
table = payload["table"]
df = pd.DataFrame(table["rows"], columns=table["columnNames"])
print(df.head())
df.to_parquet("erddap_tabledap_index_sample.parquet", index=False)

Run by us on 2026-11-05 (python 3 | pandas | pyarrow | requests). Result: ERDDAP tabledap index JSON reachable without auth on 2026-11-05.

Limits

  • Per-dataset license metadata may restrict some products — read license before bulk use.
  • Shared government infrastructure; keep retrievals modest.

Quirks

  • ERDDAP index JSON uses a columnNames + rows table shape, not a plain object list.

Terms and attribution

  • See https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/legal.html and each dataset's license field.

Sources

Information and education only. Not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Listings can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and are provided "as is". Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to each provider and can change, so check the provider's own terms before you rely on them. Terms & Disclaimer

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