Dear Seth,
No, geopotential_height is in general a function of longitude, latitude,
time, and (typically) pressure. If a single level is stored (say 500
hPa), then you should define the coordinates attribute to indicate what
the pressure level is. See example 5.8 in
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/1.0/ch05s07.html
By the way, geopotential height can also be given on surfaces of
constant "potential temperature".
Karl
Karl Taylor
PCMDI
mcginnis at ucar.edu wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've got a bunch of data that I'm going to be checking for CF
> compliance, and I had a question about the standard name
> "geopotential_height".
>
> As I understand it, geopotential height is relative to a particular
> pressure level, so you could have the 500-millibar geopotential height
> or the 850 hPa geopotential height or whatever.
>
> Does the standard name "geopotential_height" assume a particular
> pressure level? Is there a conventional way of indicating what it is
> in an attribute or something like that?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --Seth
>
>
> ----
> Seth McGinnis
> Associate Scientist
> ISSE / NCAR
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Received on Tue Jun 05 2007 - 17:45:09 BST
