API warning for ERA5 on single levels: "Orography" renamed "Geopotential"

On 25th June 2021, the  variable "Orography" was renamed "Geopotential" on the following ERA5 catalogue entries in the Climate Data Store (CDS):

• ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1979 to present

• ERA5 monthly averaged data on single levels from 1979 to present

• ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1950 to 1978 (preliminary version)

• ERA5 monthly averaged data on single levels from 1950 to 1978 (preliminary version)

This change was necessary to be in line with the definition of terms and to remove confusion.

There is no change in the data themselves.

Previous API requests asking for "Orography" will however fail now and need to be updated.

To download the corresponding data, the API request should ask for "Geopotential" e.g.

import cdsapi

c = cdsapi.Client()

c.retrieve(
    'reanalysis-era5-single-levels',
    {
        'product_type': 'reanalysis',
        'format': 'grib',
        'year': '2018',
        'variable': 'geopotential',
        'day': '01',
        'time': '00:00',
        'month': '01',
    },
    'download.grib')

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