Hello,
I am interested in creating a new file format for use in an operational
data collection scheme. The file will contain XBT profiles collected
under the auspices of the JCOMM Ship Observations Team so will have many
international users. I'd like to use CF conventions but I'm struggling
with the difference between a "convention" and a "profile". As I
understand it, CF provides guidance for how to encode data. I.e. given
a certain data structure, CF shows how that can be encoded in an
efficient and hopefully interoperable way. As this new XBT file will be
used by a large community with common goals we would like to
recommend/require the use of certain attributes and variables. This
strikes me as more of a community content profile similar to the way
ISO19115 provides the structure of a metadata document while the North
American Profile recommends the usage of certain elements. My question
is, how does one go about developing a community profile? Does this end
up being another convention or is it distinct in it's representation in
the file. For example, would the global attributes look like
.Conventions = "CF-1.4, XBT-1.0" or
.Conventions = "CF-1.4"
.Profile = "XBT-1.0" or .Community_Profile or whatever?
Clearly anything can be done, my question is does anyone care to comment
on what should be done? I know other communities such as Argo and
OceanSITES have made some choices but I'm not sure if they're the right
ones.
Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Derrick
--
Derrick Snowden
NOAA Climate Program Office, Climate Observation Division
1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1202
Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA
Tel 1-301-427-2464
Fax 1-301-427-0033
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Received on Tue Jul 14 2009 - 07:17:29 BST
