Chapter 4.  Coordinate Types

Table of Contents

4.1. Latitude Coordinate
4.2. Longitude Coordinate
4.3. Vertical (Height or Depth) Coordinate
4.3.1. Dimensional Vertical Coordinate
4.3.2. Dimensionless Vertical Coordinate
4.4. Time Coordinate
4.4.1. Calendar

Four types of coordinates receive special treatment by these conventions: latitude, longitude, vertical, and time. We continue to support the special role that the units and positive attributes play in the COARDS convention to identify coordinate type. We extend COARDS by providing explicit definitions of dimensionless vertical coordinates. The definitions are associated with a coordinate variable via the standard_name and formula_terms attributes. For backwards compatibility with COARDS use of these attributes is not required, but is strongly recommended.

Because identification of a coordinate type by its units is complicated by requiring the use of an external software package [UDUNITS], we provide two optional methods that yield a direct identification. The attribute axis may be attached to a coordinate variable and given one of the values X, Y, Z or T which stand for a longitude, latitude, vertical, or time axis respectively. Alternatively the standard_name attribute may be used for direct identification. But note that these optional attributes are in addition to the required COARDS metadata.

Coordinate types other than latitude, longitude, vertical, and time are allowed. To identify generic spatial coordinates we recommend that the axis attribute be attached to these coordinates and given one of the values X, Y or Z. We attach no specific meaning to the axis values in this case, but note that they may provide a useful hint to an application that plots spatially oriented data. The values X and Y for the axis attribute should be used to identify horizontal coordinate variables. If both X- and Y-axis are identified, X-Y-up should define a right-handed coordinate system, i.e. rotation from the positive X direction to the positive Y direction is anticlockwise if viewed from above. We strongly recommend that coordinate variables be used for all coordinate types whenever they are applicable.

The methods of identifying coordinate types described in this section apply both to coordinate variables and to auxiliary coordinate variables named by the coordinates attribute (see Chapter 5, Coordinate Systems ).

4.1. Latitude Coordinate

Variables representing latitude must always explicitly include the units attribute; there is no default value. The units attribute will be a string formatted as per the udunits.dat file. The recommended unit of latitude is degrees_north. Also acceptable are degree_north, degree_N, degrees_N, degreeN, and degreesN.

Example 4.1. Latitude axis

float lat(lat) ;
  lat:long_name = "latitude" ;
  lat:units = "degrees_north" ;
  lat:standard_name = "latitude" ;
      

Application writers should note that the Udunits package does not recognize the directionality implied by the "north" part of the unit specification. It only recognizes its size, i.e., 1 degree is defined to be pi/180 radians. Hence, determination that a coordinate is a latitude type should be done via a string match between the given unit and one of the acceptable forms of degrees_north.

Optionally, the latitude type may be indicated additionally by providing the standard_name attribute with the value latitude, and/or the axis attribute with the value Y.

Coordinates of latitude with respect to a rotated pole should be given units of degrees, not degrees_north or equivalents, because applications which use the units to identify axes would have no means of distinguishing such an axis from real latitude, and might draw incorrect coastlines, for instance. It would also not generally be appropriate to attach an axis attribute to a rotated-latitude coordinate variable. Such a variable can be identified by a standard_name of grid_latitude.