[CF-metadata] New standard name: datetime_iso8601

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:19:54 +0000

Dear Aleksandar

> > Is the proposal for the use of date-time strings in auxiliary coordinate variables only, not in (Unidata) coordinate variables,
> > to provide a human-readable equivalent to the encoded time coordinate variable?
>
> Not exclusively. It could be used for that purpose but I would not
> elevate it to the level of an auxiliary coordinate. My intention was
> to standardize on a subset of ISO8601 datetime string formats that
> can be used for such data and thought a standard name is the most
> benevolent method of achieving that.

I agree that you could use a standard_name to indicate that a certain string-
valued variable contains a date-time in ISO format. However I am not clear
how this string-valued variable would be associated with the data unless it
was an auxiliary coordinate variable i.e. one which is named by the coordinates
attribute of the data variable. What did you have in mind?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Mon Mar 25 2013 - 03:19:54 GMT