Propose removing outdated tutorials

[andypbarrett]

We (NSIDC) have found two tutorials that use outdated methods to access on-premises NASA data. I propose removing these tutorials and linking to newer tutorial content developed by NSIDC. We can use the tutorial loader to pull a replacement tutorial from the NSIDC repo.

As a side note, these outdated methods are already polluting AI Agents, which means they are giving bad advice about earthaccess.

earthaccess-demo.ipynb

https://github.com/NASA-Openscapes/earthdata-cloud-cookbook/blob/main/tutorials/earthaccess-demo.ipynb

Uses old dot-method-chaining style for searching for and accessing NASA data using earthaccess. This method has been superseded by [search_datasets] and [search_data] methods in earthaccess/api.py.

04_On-Prem_Cloud.ipynb

https://github.com/NASA-Openscapes/earthdata-cloud-cookbook/blob/main/tutorials/04_On-Prem_Cloud.ipynb

This tutorial pre-dates earthaccess and still uses requests. I propose removing this content completely. It also demonstrates a workflow to use cloud-hosted and on-prem datasets, which in a few months will not be a thing.

Possible replacement tutorial content

This recent notebook presented at the NASA ICESat-2 Applications webinar could be used as a replacement.

https://github.com/nsidc/NSIDC-Data-Tutorials/blob/main/notebooks/icesat2_webinar_demo/working_with_icesat2_sea_ice_data.ipynb

[andypbarrett]

Tagging @asteiker and @jules32 for input.

[asteiker]

Thanks for identifying these outdated tutorials @andypbarrett. Separately, the earthaccess demo notebook was just flagged for removal via nsidc/earthaccess#1075 (comment) due to it being outdated, so I agree that we should remove on our end. I wonder if there is a better longer-form tutorial on working with the various search and access methods in earthaccess. Any suggestions? As far as 04_On-Prem_Cloud.ipynb yes we should have all our ECS (on-prem) data hidden by the end of the calendar year, and MODIS will be hidden before this date, so I agree on removing this as well.

@jules32 do we want to continue supporting the external notebook loading workflow? I know we've had trouble in the past with broken links and thought we had discussed a longer-term strategy to point out to other DAAC notebooks. Maybe we could revisit our cookbook roadmap/vision at a future mentors call? In the meantime I think it would be great to reference more up to date materials like https://github.com/nsidc/NSIDC-Data-Tutorials/blob/main/notebooks/icesat2_webinar_demo/working_with_icesat2_sea_ice_data.ipynb but I just want to make sure we have a shared strategy for these cross-references.

[jules32]

Hi @andypbarrett and @asteiker, thanks for this.

Yes, let's definitely remove the outdated tutorials, thanks for flagging those Andy and Amy for confirming. A bummer that it's fouling AI Agents about earthaccess.

We can discuss the external notebook loading workflow on our Sept 3 Mentor Call if that sounds good; we can see how to best add the notebook from the NASA ICESat-2 Applications webinar.

However, we can remove the other two before that discussion however, I think that is important to do asap. I'll submit a PR.

[andypbarrett]

We need to update https://nasa-openscapes.github.io/earthdata-cloud-cookbook/tutorials/. At the moment there are still links in the cookbooks that return 404.

ICESat-2 and Landsat cloud access and data integration - Tutorial
Accessing multiple large datasets in the cloud

Pairing Cloud and non-Cloud Data - Tutorial
Accessing and harmonizing data located within and outside of the NASA Earthdata Cloud

earthaccess Python Library Demo - Tutorial