[CF-metadata] what standard names are for

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 08:41:11 +0100

Dear Bryan et al.

> For whom do we write cf-netcdf files? In most cases for ourselves and our
> existing community. I would argue that much of the effort to make CF names
> self-describing beyond the primary user community is mixing up different
> classes of the metadata taxonomy.

I think we are disagreeing somewhat about this because it is not well-defined
what "primary user community" means. The concern I have is that CF is being
used to describe all kinds of geophysical data (and I'm glad that is the case).
I think the "primary user community" now covers a wide range of disciplines.
Earth system models involve not only climate but atmospheric chemistry, ocean
biogeochemistry, terrestrial and marine ecosystems. No-one is an expert on all
this, but someone working with an ESM might need to deal with data from any
part of it. If that is the user community, we should try to make the standard
names for any quantity comprehensible to someone from any of the relevant
disciplines, though (as I said) in the end it will be a compromise, as the
names shouldn't end up as long as their definitions!

It is likely that CF might be used for data about the solid Earth as well, in
which the term "ocean basement" is used, and it doesn't means the same as
"sea foundation" in GHRSST. In fact, the basement is lower than the foundation
:-). Though this is not a problem at present, it's an illustration of why I
think names which are more self-explanatory (like "at base of diurnal thermo-
cline") are a good idea.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Wed Apr 09 2008 - 01:41:11 BST