[CF-metadata] axis attribute

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:56:28 +0000

Dear Brian

Thanks for reminding of what I said five years ago! Despite that, I believe
we produced an inconsistency, so I might change my mind. :-) Isn't it
inconsistent to
(a) recommend axis attribute for "generic spatial coords" (with no special
interpretation, just to provide a hint to the user of data) but
(b) forbid it with rotated lon and lat?
I think we should change one of these. Either we should allow X and Y *only*
with lon and lat, or we should allow them with *any* horizontal axes, but
stress that if they are not longitude and latitude, they do not carry any
information except that the data-writer thinks of them as the x and y axes of
the plot.

>Allowing axis="X" to denote either the rotated latitude or longitude axes
>is a recipe for confusion and unlikely to be helpful to any application.
The help it could be is to suggest it should be plotted as the horizontal axis.
The confusion it could cause is that some software might be using axis="X" to
find a longitude axes. Given (a) above, that is not safe, but it is possible
that assumption has been made.

I wonder whether any writers of data and applications have any views?

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Tue Nov 14 2006 - 06:56:28 GMT