Hi Kevin: I havent had time to reproduce this yet, but im guessing one source of the slowdown is using opendap URLS in the compound aggregation. It would be interesting to time 1) the single aggregations, 2) the compound agg as it exists, and 3) the compound agg, but replace the opendap URLs with direct netcdf files, see attached file
Replace: <netcdf xmlns="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/namespaces/netcdf/ncml-2.2"> <aggregation type="union"> <netcdf location="http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov:8780/thredds/dodsC/pr_daily_20C3M-1_R1_18610101-20001231" /> <netcdf location="http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov:8780/thredds/dodsC/tasmax_daily_20C3M-1_R1_18610101-20001231" /> <netcdf location="http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov:8780/thredds/dodsC/tasmin_daily_20C3M-1_R1_18610101-20001231" /> </aggregation> </netcdf> With: <netcdf xmlns="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/namespaces/netcdf/ncml-2.2"> <aggregation type="union"> <netcdf> <aggregation dimName="time" type="joinExisting"> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmax_A2.18610101-19001231.nc" ncoords="14600" /> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmax_A2.19010101-20001231.nc" ncoords="36500" /> </aggregation> </netcdf> <netcdf> <aggregation dimName="time" type="joinExisting"> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmin_A2.18610101-19001231.nc" ncoords="14600" /> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmin_A2.19010101-20001231.nc" ncoords="36500" /> </aggregation> </netcdf> <netcdf> <aggregation dimName="time" type="joinExisting"> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmin_A2.18610101-19001231.nc" ncoords="14600" /> <netcdf location="file:/data/gfdl_cm2_1/CM2.1U-D4_1860-2000-AllForc_H1/pp/atmos/ts/daily/tasmin_A2.19010101-20001231.nc" ncoords="36500" /> </aggregation> </netcdf> </aggregation> </netcdf>