Quickstart

$ conda create -n esgf-pyclient -c conda-forge esgf-pyclient
$ conda activate esgf-pyclient

Once installed you import the package as the name pyesgf:

from pyesgf.search import SearchConnection
conn = SearchConnection('http://esgf-index1.ceda.ac.uk/esg-search',
                         distrib=True)
ctx = conn.new_context(project='CMIP5', query='humidity')
ctx.hit_count

See the Examples.