Dear All,
It has been brought to my attention (Thanks Beate) that the CF Checker
only detects that
the standard_name attribute has been omitted if there is also no
long_name specified. (CF 3)
The omission of a standard_name means a consistency check on the units
can't be made
and so can mask potential units errors.
If there were a positive recommendation to use standard_names where
appropriate then the
checker could raise a warning that they have been omitted. The user will
then be aware
that there may be additional errors. I see a lot of effort being put
into expanding/maintaining the
standard_name table, I think the convention should encourage people to
use them.
Hence I'd like to propose an additional recommendation to CF section 3.3
something along
the lines of:
* All variables should use the standard_name attribute to describe their
content. Exceptions
are boundary, climatology and grid_mapping variables.
Regards,
Ros
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosalyn Hatcher
NCAS-Climate
Dept. of Meteorology, University of Reading,
Earley Gate, Reading. RG6 6BB
Email: r.s.hatcher at reading.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 118 378 7841
Received on Tue Oct 17 2006 - 04:05:47 BST
