[CF-metadata] some concerns about the "ensemble axis" proposal

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 18:32:13 +0000

Dear Steve, Balaji, Bryan and all

I'm a user of datasets (reading and writing) rather than a provider of servers
etc. As such, my perception of this agrees with what Bryan says. In the end,
I am going to be analysing something that looks like a netCDF file to my
program. Even if it isn't really underneath, the metadata design and structure
will be the same, and that is what CF is about. We all agree, I expect, that
aggregation is necessary and servers desirable.

The proposal we have deals with a practically important case which we can
accommodate within the present netCDF API. It's straightforward and looks
useful, so I don't see why we should not adopt it. That doesn't preclude
further conventions being agreed later on, as I said in my last posting.
I think Balaji is right that the data will not necessarily be stored with an
ensemble axis and I wouldn't advocate that, but sometimes it is useful, as
in Paco's requirement, and as in some AR4 analyses.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Wed Mar 07 2007 - 11:32:13 GMT