Hi Jonathan,
>
>> There is quite strong feeling here that we want to do it this way rather
>> than separating out each channel into its own variable, however I cannot
>> see how to associate such attributes *in a CF compliant way*. Is this
>> possible? How could/should such a dataset be structured?
>
> I can't see a way to do it either. I must say, it doesn't immediately make
> sense to me to want to put values for different quantities (distinguished by
> standard name and units) into the same data variable. That would be an
> awkward variable for the user of the dataset. The idea of a physical variable
> stored in an array is usually that is a single continuous quantity which
> happens to have been discretised onto a grid. Can you explain a bit about
> why you feel it is preferable to have different quantities in one variable?
>
Thanks for this response. This was very useful and I think I now have
got acceptance here of using separate datasets for different physical
quantities.
We still plan to use multi-dimensional arrays for raw data from a
multi-channel instrument, but only where it makes sense to use the same
standard name & units (eg radiances at different wavelength bands, where
nominal wavelength is used as a 'channel' dimension). All derived
geophysical quantities extracted from these observation data will be
stored in separate datasets.
--
Simon Wood Meteorology & Remote Sensing
Scientific Programmer NIWA
simon.wood at niwa.co.nz http://www.niwa.co.nz
Received on Mon Nov 13 2006 - 19:45:50 GMT
