Jonathan,
I've just caught up with the last few postings from Alison Pamment, Roy Lowry and others, on the NetCDF CF mailing lists.
A bit of history: some of the regions, _spheres, sea and land names (ValIds) that were added to the NASA GCMD many years ago were added by me, on behalf of WMO, based on fleshing out the partial GCMD lists with the more comprehensive published WMO lists, plus the usual WMO legal disclaimer about country borders etc.
This suggests to me that the approach of referring to other registries, such as a gazetteer, code list, taxonomy, etc is the way to go and fits with what WMO and UKMO are planning and existing definitive and maintained lists such as IHO S-23 and ISO3166-1.
Perhaps the NetCDF CF community could raise a requirements document to send to WMO, the IPET-MDI and IPET DRC in particular, as they are having a joint meeting in Exeter in May 2012, with recommendations potentially endorsed by CBS in September 2012?
There is also a consultant working in UKMO on registry issues for the next few months.
HTH Chris
Chris Little
Co-Chair, OGC Meteorology & Oceanography Domain Working Group
International Telecoms & Projects
Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Tel: +44(0)1392 886278 Fax: +44(0)1392 885681 Mobile: +44(0)7753 880514
E-mail: chris.little at metoffice.gov.uk
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk
Received on Mon Jan 23 2012 - 13:05:49 GMT
