[CF-metadata] Question from NODC about interplay of standard name modifiers, cell_methods, etc.

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:40:38 +0000

Dear Ken

> Thanks for your response too (copied here? is it bad form in a listserv to consolidate responses like this?)

I think it's convenient, myself!

> That answer seems so easy and obvious that I wonder if I asked the question properly! I'll have to ask Tim to be sure, but I think the standard deviation is the standard deviation over time, of means generated in each time-area-depth cell.

> But I think the question still remains about being able to use a standard name, which we would like to do of course? I am pretty sure in this example for this standard deviation variable we should NOT use sea_water_temperature for standard_name, and that it would be good if there were more standard name modifiers to choose from. If there were, perhaps we could set standard name to something like "sea_water_temperature standard_deviation".

You *should* use sea_water_temperature as the standard_name. The standard_name
alone is not to be regarded as the description of the metadata. It has to be
taken in combination with cell_methods and modifiers. Maybe it seems more
surprising that a temporal standard deviation of sea_water_temperature has
sea_water_temperature for its standard name, but it's really the same kind of
idea - i.e. a statistic - as a temporal mean or a temporal maximum, isn't it.
Even if it was variance its standard_name would be sea_water_temperature, and
in that case the units would be different too.

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Mon Mar 25 2013 - 11:40:38 GMT