[CF-metadata] The use of CF cell constructs for point data

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:20:09 +0100

Dear Randy

Thanks for your further description. Now I agree with you and John that this
is a point feature. I guessed wrongly from your first email that you were
describing something like a timeseries. The file records a number of lightning
events, each with an energy, area, location, time - have I understood
correctly? In that case I suppose the logical structure of the data is

float event_energy(event);
  event_energy:coordinates="time lat lon";
  event_energy:cell_methods="time: sum area: sum";
float event_area(event);
  event_area:coordinates="time lat lon";
  event_area:cell_methods="time: sum area: sum";
float time(event);
  time:bounds="time_bounds";
float time_bounds(event,two);
float lat(event);
float lon(event);

Is that right? The energy detected applies to a certain region of space-time,
so I think "sum" is the appropriate cell_methods, rather than being precisely
localised at a particular time and place, in which case "point" would be right.
I have put the energy and the area of the event as the data variables, and the
time and location as aux coord vars. You might wish to propose new standard
names for the data vars.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Tue Apr 10 2012 - 15:20:09 BST