GLORYS12¶

Copernicus Marine Global Ocean Physics Reanalysis GLORYS12V1 (GLOBAL_MULTIYEAR_PHY_001_030)

Available

At a glance¶

Note on period: The multi-year reanalysis proper runs to June 2021; months from July 2021 onwards were produced in "interim" mode and are extended monthly. When checked on 2026-10-11, the catalogue's temporal extent ended on 25 Aug 2026, so the most recent one to two months are not yet available.

Overview¶

GLORYS12V1 is the Copernicus Marine global ocean eddy-resolving reanalysis (1/12° horizontal resolution, 50 vertical levels) produced by Mercator Ocean International. It is based on the NEMO ocean model with sea ice, assimilating along-track satellite altimetry, satellite sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration and in situ temperature and salinity profiles. Because it resolves mesoscale eddies, it is widely used for studies of boundary currents, coastal circulation and marine heatwaves. It covers the altimetry era, starting in 1993.

Available variables¶

Main variables from the official Product User Manual (PUM). Names are the NetCDF variable names (short names) in the files.

instantaneous mean accumulated maximum minimum static — instantaneous: value at the time stamp · mean/accumulated/maximum/minimum: over the indicated interval · static: does not change with time

3D ocean (50 levels)¶

2D ocean¶

Sea ice¶

Static fields¶

The full variable list is in the official documentation.

How to get the data¶

• Copernicus Marine Data Store — product page — Web download (Subset, File Browser) / Copernicus Marine Toolbox (copernicusmarine)
  • Requires a free Copernicus Marine account. Dataset IDs: daily means cmems_mod_glo_phy_my_0.083deg_P1D-m, monthly means cmems_mod_glo_phy_my_0.083deg_P1M-m.
• Copernicus Marine Toolbox documentation — Python / command line (CLI)
  • Provides subset (cut by area, depth and time) and get (download the original files). The supported major version is 2.x.

Example code¶

Install with pip install copernicusmarine, run login() once to store your credentials, then run the script. Based on the example in the official help centre.

import copernicusmarine

# Run once (credentials are stored locally)
# copernicusmarine.login(username="<username>", password="<password>")

copernicusmarine.subset(
    dataset_id="cmems_mod_glo_phy_my_0.083deg_P1D-m",
    variables=["thetao", "so"],
    minimum_longitude=120,
    maximum_longitude=135,
    minimum_latitude=30,
    maximum_latitude=45,
    start_datetime="2020-01-01",
    end_datetime="2020-01-31",
    minimum_depth=0,
    maximum_depth=100,
    output_filename="glorys12_eastsea_202001.nc",
    output_directory="copernicus-data",
)

Practical tips¶

• In November 2025 the interim datasets (cmems_mod_glo_phy_myint_0.083deg_P1D-m, ..._P1M-m) were retired and merged into the my datasets. If old scripts still use the myint IDs, switch them to the my IDs.
• Support for Copernicus Marine Toolbox 1.x ended in July 2025. Upgrade to 2.x; version 2.4 and later require Python 3.10 or newer.
• Data from July 2021 onwards were produced in interim mode, under different production conditions from the earlier period. When computing long-term trends, check for a discontinuity at this boundary.
• Daily 3D fields at 1/12° quickly reach hundreds of MB to several GB. Use subset to download only the region, depths and variables you actually need.

Notices and change history¶

References for your paper¶

Dataset citation¶

Product DOI — DOI 10.48670/moi-00021

@misc{cmems_glorys12,
  author    = {{E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information (CMEMS)}},
  title     = {Global Ocean Physics Reanalysis ({GLOBAL\_MULTIYEAR\_PHY\_001\_030})},
  year      = {2018},
  publisher = {Mercator Ocean International, Marine Data Store (MDS)},
  doi       = {10.48670/moi-00021},
  note      = {Accessed on DD MMM YYYY}
}

Reference papers¶

GLORYS12 description paper — DOI 10.3389/feart.2021.698876

@article{lellouche2021glorys12,
  author  = {Lellouche, Jean-Michel and Greiner, Eric and Bourdall{\'e}-Badie, Romain and Garric, Gilles and Melet, Ang{\'e}lique and Dr{\'e}villon, Marie and Bricaud, Cl{\'e}ment and Hamon, Mathieu and Le Galloudec, Olivier and Regnier, Charly and Candela, Tony and Testut, Charles-Emmanuel and Gasparin, Florent and Ruggiero, Giovanni and Benkiran, Mounir and Drillet, Yann and Le Traon, Pierre-Yves},
  title   = {The {Copernicus} Global 1/12$^\circ$ Oceanic and Sea Ice {GLORYS12} Reanalysis},
  journal = {Frontiers in Earth Science},
  volume  = {9},
  pages   = {698876},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.3389/feart.2021.698876}
}

Acknowledgements¶

Copernicus Marine recommends the acknowledgement "This study has been conducted using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information;" followed by the DOI of each product used (here 10.48670/moi-00021). Dataset IDs have no DOI of their own, so cite the product DOI.

Information on the datasets used in this study was compiled with the help of the Korean Climate Data Navigator (KCDN) (Sim, 2026; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23300923).

Links¶

• Copernicus Marine product page (GLOBAL_MULTIYEAR_PHY_001_030)
• Product User Manual (PUM)
• Quality Information Document (QUID)
• How to cite or reference Copernicus Marine products and services
• Copernicus Marine Toolbox — API: subset (help centre)