[CF-metadata] Cell bounds associated with coordinate variable rather than data variable

From: Ethan Davis <edavis>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:08:15 -0600

Hi John,

John Caron wrote:
>
> The time coordinate here means forecast time, and you are trying to
> capture "interval of accumulation".

I'm not sure I understand your point here. The forecast time is the only
time dimension we have. What other time coordinate would the "interval
of accumulation" be over?

> As jonathan says, you would have to create separate time coordinates for
> each variable which has a distinct bounds.

Yes, CF is currently written so only one boundary variable can be
associate with one coordinate variable so this situation would require
multiple time coordinates. I'm wondering if CF should be extended to
allow multiple boundary variables to be associated with a single
coordinate variable.

> theoretically theres no
> problem with that, practically it may be more confusing than just
> documenting the bounds on the variable in a non-standard but
> human-readable way. it seems unlikely that a generic program could do
> anything useful with those coordinate bounds.

I agree that multiple time coordinates would do nothing for clarity.
Which is why I'm wondering about extending CF to allow for a clearer,
programmatically useful representation of this data.

Ethan
Received on Thu Oct 22 2009 - 16:08:15 BST