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

From: Thomas Lavergne <t.lavergne>
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 15:25:40 +0000 (UTC)

Hei Jonathan, and all,

----- Original Message -----

> > 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?

I think that would do it, indeed. Thank you.

I did not receive further comment on my proposal for handling vectors via the unbrella variable.

Should I thus move forward and open a trac item for adding some text to the convention?

Or should we rather first go through the current standard name table and see if all the vector components names can be grouped under higher-level umbrellas (and what these umbrella names would be)?

Cheers,
Thomas
Received on Mon Dec 05 2011 - 08:25:40 GMT