[CF-metadata] standard names for time variables

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:17:35 +0100

Dear Sue

> The standard name table does not have very many
> choices for time variables. Are there standard variable names
> for the following: start time, stop time, valid time, expire time,
> write time?

"time" means the time at which the data in the variable is valid in the real
world; for a forecast this is contrasted with "forecast_reference_time", which
is the time from which the forecast was made.

You are welcome to make proposals for new standard names. I don't know for
sure what you have in mind in the above list, but it looks like some of these
times might be metadata about the dataset, rather than a time coordinate for
the data variables, and in that case the standard name may not be the right
attribute for it. In a non-standardised way such information can be recorded
in global attributes such as comment and history.

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Fri Aug 17 2007 - 01:17:35 BST