[CF-metadata] Proposal for better handling vector quantities in CF

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 15:32:13 +0000

Dear Thomas

> At the current stage, it would be valid to define an umbrella vector variable from two component variables, one being dX(time,xc,yc) and dY(time,height,xc,yc). What would be the meaning of such a construct? And if invalid, how can we enforce that the component variables have to somehow share the same dimensions? Would a sentence in the convention be enough to avoid these constructs?

I suppose that you could say that all the data variables named by the
umbrella must have the same set of coordinate axes, identified by the
standard_names of their coordinate variables, although they do not have
to have the same sets of coordinate values. This would exclude, for instance,
one data variable having time-latitude-longitude and another time-altitude-
latitude-longitude as coordinate variables, but it would permit components
on an Arakawa C-grid. Would that be sufficient?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Fri Dec 02 2011 - 08:32:13 GMT