[CF-metadata] [cf-satellite] Sharing quality flags amongmultiple variables

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 14:45:49 +0000

Dear Thomas et al.

If I've understood correctly, two different solutions have been suggested to
the issue of duplicated status_flag variables.

* Have only one status_flag variable, with flag_values and flag_meanings
attributes. This one variable will be pointed to by the ancillary_variables
attribute of several data variables. This means we need a new convention for
the standard_name attribute so that it can be associated with data variables
that may have various standard_names.

* Have a separate status_flag variable for each data variable. In that case
the standard_name can be specific to the data variable. To avoid repeating
the definitions of flags, introduce a new convention to allow the flag_values
and flag_meanings attributes to be attached to a separate container variable
that can be pointed to by all the data variables.

Clearly there are use cases that need attention in some way, but it would be
preferable to make no more than one change to the CF standard. Which of these
approaches is preferable, or are there others that people have in mind?

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Wed Nov 02 2011 - 08:45:49 GMT