On Mar 13, 2009, at 12:58 AM, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> Dear John
>
> It appears from your examples that these "raw" values are very
> specific to the technology being used. Under what circumstances can
> they be compared usefully from different data sources, without
> knowing the identity of the equipment? If they can't usefully be
> compared, why do they need standard names? (Sorry if these questions
> reiterate points you made initially.)
The use case is that I'm searching for sea water temperature data.
(I'm using standard names because that is one of the best ocean
science data naming conventions available.) Currently I will not find
data that is in netCDF files in the searched repository, but is not
convertible to canonical units. By allowing these standard names I
can find that data. Once the data is found, I can either: (a)
manually examine the metadata to see if transformation algorithms are
supplied, (b) query the provider of the data, or (c) attempt to infer
or derive appropriate transformations from other information that is
available.
The key (missing) piece that is being supplied by the standard name is
the discovery piece.
(As often happens today, when people go back into old data sets --
which itself is happening more and more often -- they find themselves
executing one of steps (a) thru (c) anyway, due to insufficient
metadata about the source of the data and the processes used to create
it. I have seen proposals elsewhere for improving that situation in
netCDF files, and it is my expectation that CF will evolve to
accommodate that need, sooner or later. Then the process of using the
newly discovered data can become more automated.)
John
On Mar 13, 2009, at 12:58 AM, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> Dear John
>
> It appears from your examples that these "raw" values are very
> specific to the
> technology being used. Under what circumstances can they be compared
> usefully
> from different data sources, without knowing the identity of the
> equipment?
> If they can't usefully be compared, why do they need standard names?
> (Sorry
> if these questions reiterate points you made initially.)
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
> CF-metadata mailing list
> CF-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
> http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
John
--------------
John Graybeal <mailto:graybeal at mbari.org> -- 831-775-1956
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Marine Metadata Interoperability Project:
http://marinemetadata.org
Received on Fri Mar 13 2009 - 10:56:25 GMT
