[CF-metadata] Use of CF standard name region

From: martin.juckes at stfc.ac.uk <martin.juckes>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2016 08:24:29 +0000

Dear Jonathan,

I can understand the argument that the concept of "region" is what you want in the standard name, and I'm happy to accept that. The problem that started this discussion remains, however. Namely, the current standard name definition for region includes a reference to the list of area_types specified within the CF Convention and an indication as to how that should be implemented.

regards,
Martin



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Dear Martin

I agree with adding to the definition of region, and also area_type (for which
this approach has also been advocated), that it may be convenient to store
such variables as numbers with a flag_values and flag_meanings attribute.
However I don't think it should be regarded as a different quantity, so I
don't think it needs a different standard name. I don't think we should define
standard numbers for regions or area_types, because this would be against the
usual CF principle that files should describe their contents without need for
reference to external tables. The representation of strings as numbers is not
standardised, and is defined in the file by the flag attributes. That is why
I regard it as an issue of encoding, more like scale and offset, and not a
different quantity.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Wed Jun 01 2016 - 02:24:29 BST