With slight modification, the answer above works with arrays of arbitrary dimension (1d, 2d, 3d, ...):
def find_nearest(a, a0):
"Element in nd array `a` closest to the scalar value `a0`"
idx = np.abs(a - a0).argmin()
return a.flat[idx]
Or, written as a single line:
a.flat[np.abs(a - a0).argmin()]