Dear Jonathan,
Most models have 4d data, so clearly CF-netCDF capable of dealing with
them. It is not the dimensionality, which causes the difficulties, but
habits and traditions, and this is, I guess, the main reason why the
observationalists do not use CF. When discussing the data formats for
the GEOmon data base for observational atmospheric composition data,
there was not even a discussion about the potential of using CF.
A short look of the observationalists at our names was enough to
convince them that the semantics we for the chemical names are valid in
the modeling world, but not always in real world. It was just easier to
turn to HDF or NASA AMES.
The only way to solve this problem could be to try and involve more
observationalists in the discussions on the CF metadata mailing list.
Cheers,
Christiane
Jonathan Gregory schrieb:
> Dear Christiane
>
>> Secondly, I have realized that the names we are defining
>> for chemicals and aerosols are rather biased towards the modeling world.
> Yes, that's because it's where the use of CF started. But just as in other
> areas of application of CF, there is no reason why we should not add further
> names to suit observational applications, when they indicate different
> concepts from those we have named already. As in other areas, it will
> facilitate intercomparison of obs and models if we can adopt the same
> standard. What can we do to encourage the observational community to be
> interested in CF metadata?
>
>> HDF for the remaining (4 dimensional data sets, time + 4 space dim)
> Of course, the same dimensionality could be described in CF-netCDF. However
> CF could (I imagine) also be used as an HDF convention.
>
>> This is no problem of having different formats, as long as clear and
>> consistent definitions exist.
> There is no problem provided the formats have the same logical organisation,
> so you can map concepts one-to-one. However, this is often not the case, for
> example in the choice of whether coordinate variables are part of the
> definition of the quantity or kept separate (CF always does the latter).
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
> CF-metadata mailing list
> CF-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
> http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
--
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Christiane Textor
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement
Unite Mixte de Recherche CEA-CNRS-UVSQ
LSCE, CEA Saclay
L'Orme des Merisiers, Bat. 701 Piece 3b
mailto: christiane.textor at lsce.ipsl.fr
Tel ++33 1 69 08 34 07 Fax ++33 1 69 08 34 07
F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex
FRANCE
GEOMON scientific project manager http://www.geomon.eu
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Received on Mon Nov 12 2007 - 00:33:04 GMT
