The only thing that designates a variable as an auxiliary coordinate
variable is the presence of the variable name in a coordinates attribute on
another variable. There is nothing intrinsic to the variable that
designates it as a coordinate variable. (Not so for true coordinate
variables.) For this reason alone I think that we shouldn't impose
restrictions on these variables (those designated as auxiliary) that are
greater than for any other variable.
It seems to me that using the ancillary variable designation obfuscates the
relationship that I am trying to indicate, which is that the auxiliary
coordinate variable provides coordinate information for the variable it is
attached to, but that it does not meet one or more restrictions imposed on
true coordinate variables. The restriction that isn't met could be
monotonicity, the presence of fill or missing values, or something else.
Can someone provide a real-world example of why allowing auxiliary
coordinate variables to deviate from the true coordinate variable
restrictions poses a problem great enough that it should be forbidden?
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory at reading.ac.uk
> wrote:
> Dear Randy
>
> Thanks for the clarification. I see no problem in having missing data where
> there are non-missing aux coord vars. This is a usual situation.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jonathan
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--
Jim Biard
Research Scholar
Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites
Remote Sensing and Applications Division
National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Ave, Asheville, NC 28801-5001
jim.biard at noaa.gov
828-271-4900
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