[CF-metadata] standard names for stations

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:32:05 +0100

Dear Nan, John, Jeff

I think variable attributes are generally better than global attributes,
because it's possible or indeed likely that you might have data from different
sources in the same file. I prefer data variables to describe themselves. We
can provide global attributes as a default for the whole file, but it seems
safer to me to repeat the attributes per variable.

Following John's point, I agree that this station ID information will not be
usable by machine or guaranteed to be unique unless we standardise it in some
way. I don't know about this subject, but I am sure there are people who are
well-informed about it! If we want the station ID attribute(s) to be machine-
readable, we can propose a standard format for them. If we want an attr where
the data-writer can informally record ID information that another human could
interpret, we don't need a standard format. Which do we want - any views?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Fri Sep 16 2011 - 08:32:05 BST