This section has been superseded by the treatment of time series as a type of discrete sampling geometry in Chapter 9.

To represent data at scattered points it is convenient to use a variable with one dimension to represent the measurement locations. Auxiliary coordinate variables are used to associate a single spatial dimension with multiple independent coordinates.

Example 5.4. Timeseries of station data


dimensions:
  station = 10 ;  // measurement locations
  pressure = 11 ; // pressure levels
  time = UNLIMITED ;
variables:
  float humidity(time,pressure,station) ;
    humidity:long_name = "specific humidity" ;
    humidity:coordinates = "lat lon" ;
  double time(time) ;
    time:long_name = "time of measurement" ;
    time:units = "days since 1970-01-01 00:00:00" ;
  float lon(station) ;
    lon:long_name = "station longitude";
    lon:units = "degrees_east";
  float lat(station) ;
    lat:long_name = "station latitude" ;
    lat:units = "degrees_north" ;
  float pressure(pressure) ;
    pressure:long_name = "pressure" ;
    pressure:units = "hPa" ;
      

humidity(n,k,i) is associated with the coordinate values time(n), pressure(k), lat(i), and lon(i).