Hi Chris,
One time zone label (Z for UT) is valid in 8601.
In SeaDataNet we took the decision some 10 years back to 'profile' ISO8601 by disallowing any character to the right of the seconds and defining the result as UT. The reason this was done was to prevent data delivery in local time with embedded corrections thereby simplify application development. In retrospect it would have been better to mandate a 'Z', but hindsight is a wonderful thing and this practice is now encoded in millions of physical files and so difficult to fix.
Cheers, Roy.
Please note that I partially retired on 01/11/2015. I am now only working 7.5 hours a week and can only guarantee e-mail response on Wednesdays, my day in the office. All vocabulary queries should be sent to enquiries at bodc.ac.uk. Please also use this e-mail if your requirement is urgent.
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From: CF-metadata <cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu> on behalf of Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov>
Sent: 21 September 2016 20:52
To: Nan Galbraith
Cc: cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] Temporal nitpicks. Was: CF-metadata Digest, Vol 161, Issue 3
On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 5:45 AM, Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith at whoi.edu<mailto:ngalbraith at whoi.edu>> wrote:
Can we recommend the use of ISO-compatible date strings, with
the caveat that time zone should always be included?
Yes, we really should do that (though it's an offset that is specified, not a time zone)
It's unfortunate that ISO defaults to local time, and that seems to be
non-negotiable.
yup :-(
This is what we use in the OceanSITES implementation of CF. Obviously,
it won't solve everyone's needs,
I'm trying to see whos needs it wouldn't suit folks may well want local time, rather than UTC, but having it be unspecified does no one any good.
and specifying times in "true" local time, with DST baked in is simply a nightmare for everyone --- it really, really should be discouraged!
-CHB
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception
Chris.Barker at noaa.gov<mailto:Chris.Barker at noaa.gov>
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