[CF-metadata] CDM calendar date handling

From: John Caron <caron>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:45:41 -0600

>> Regarding paleoclimate, a point I forgot is that some modellers may
>> wish to
>> have years which are very large negative numbers (many more than four
>> digits)
>> if they set up the model with the "true" date for the run. Although for
>> geological timescales you might say that this isn't necessary and you
>> might
>> as well choose an arbitrary year, there is a good reason for it in
>> Pleistocene
>> when you might be using the dates to relate to orbital forcing or
>> atmospheric
>> composition.
>
> so the idea is that you are simulating some year, so you really need
> time down to the hour or second. but the climate is from 5 million
> years ago, so you need the year field to be able to handle that?

Im just thinking that fitting this into the ISO date format
"5000000-01-01 12:00" seems awkward, esp as it indicates unwarranted
precision.

seems something like "01-01 12:00 reference 50m BCE" would be better.
What do paleo modellers actually use, eg in the figures that they publish?
Received on Fri Aug 19 2011 - 10:45:41 BST