[CF-metadata] standard names for stations

From: Jeffrey F. Painter <painter1>
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:27:04 -0700

It seems to me that we would need four standard_names to satisfy
everyone's needs. How does this sound?

platform_name: variable of character type containing a character ID or
name of an observing station or other platform
platform_id: variable of integer type, identifying an observing station
or other platform
platform_naming_authority: variable of character type, specifying the
naming authority or system used to choose a platform_id or platform_name
platform_description: variable of character_type which describes an
observing station or other platform

A typical station would have a platform_name or platform_id, but rarely
both. The reason for having both is that I expect that the numerical
WMO identifiers (of various lengths) will be used very frequently, and
it can be helpful to represent numbers as numbers. But Eiji's message
shows that we must allow for character identifiers. A relatively short
character identifier would have a different function from the kind of
long description suggested by ?ystein. The most common
platform_naming_authority would be the originally conceived "WMO", of
course.

- Jeff

On 8/26/11 12:36 AM, ?ystein God?y wrote:
>> Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:26:55 -0700
>> From: "Jeffrey F. Painter"<painter1 at llnl.gov>
>> Subject: [CF-metadata] standard names for stations
>> To: cf-metadata<cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu>
>> Message-ID:<4E5588BF.2090003 at llnl.gov>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>> The draft version 1.6 of the CF Conventions manual recommends use of
> two
>> standard names which don't exist yet but are needed to describe discrete
>> data such as observations from stations or other discrete points. So
>> I'd like to propose the following two standard names:
>>
>> - station_description : variable of character type containing a
>> description of a time series station
>> - wmo_platform_id : variable of integer type, containing the WMO
>> identifier of an observing station or other platform
>>
>> - Jeff Painter
> Hi,
>
> I clearly see the need for this.
>
> Concerning station_description, I think this is useful whether it is a time
> series or not. There is a need to describe the actual location for the
> station. E.g. describe the surface, horizon, and other aspects that may affect
> the observations.
>
> Concerning wmo_platform_id, I think Nan Galbraiths suggestion using an id
> and a naming authority is useful and more flexible than specifying a WMO
> reference directly. Concerning my institution, all stations operated by us,
> whether being WMO stations or not, always have an internal ID. Not all
> stations have a WMO id. It may even be useful to be able to use multiple ids
> for stations to cover situations like the one I mention.
>
> NACCD is good but it does not have the momentum that CF has. Many other
> such discovery conventions for NetCDF files exist and are used, most of
> course differing only slightly. I believe they will merge in time, but for now
> I think NACDD is less used than CF. I certainly agree it should be promoted
> (and we will probably move towards it), but these things take time.
>
> Thus I would prefer put as much information as possible as CF-compliant
> variables in the dataset, even if it means duplicating them as global
> attributes for discovery purposes.
>
> All the best
> ?ystein
Received on Fri Aug 26 2011 - 18:27:04 BST