[CF-metadata] curvilinear cartesian coordinates case

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 18:14:31 +0000

Dear Steve and Brian

Brian wrote
> I'd say the requirement is to enhance the feature of allowing data to be
> spatially located using alternate coordinate systems. This is optional
> metadata that supplements the required lat/lon coordinates which insure
> interoperability. CF already contains this feature, but we didn't design
> it with the use case in mind that some data providers would like to include
> more than one alternate coordinate system for a single data variable.

That's a good summary. I agree. Sorry I wasn't clear in my contribution.

Steve wrote
> > The idea of the CF metadata
> > is to _make the datasets self-describing_.
Steve, your following argument seems to be against the idea of including
projection coordinates at all, not just against the extension of the feature
that Bert has requested. You could argue that since we require 2D lat and lon
to be included, it would be better to provide external translators that could
convert such 2D lat and lon into any projection coordinate system the user
wanted, and not store the projection coordinates in the file. But that seems
unhelpful to potential users of the file. Indeed, if they would prefer a
projection different from any of those which the file has stored, they could
always calculate it from lat and lon, but if the data-provider knows there
is a projection(s) likely to be of use, is it not a good idea to store the
projection coords in the file?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Fri Dec 01 2006 - 11:14:31 GMT