[ncl-talk] NetCDF Conventions

[Carl Schreck]

Apologies for a slightly off-topic question, but I want to draw on the
expertise on this list.

I've noticed that many of the netCDF datasets I download, esp. those from
ESRL, have similar attributes that go beyond just CF-compliance. A few
examples:

- time is always a double instead of a float
- time is usually in units of days or hours since 1800
- _FillValue isn't zero
- The coordinate arrays are named time, level, lat, lon.

Is there a higher standard that dictates these practices? I ask here
because NCL seems to play a little nicer with these files (esp. time as a
double). My goal is to provide feedback to the data producers here at NCDC
so that they can produce netCDF files that are as easily accessible as
possible.

    Thanks!
    Carl

-- 

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*Carl J. Schreck III, PhD*
*Research Associate*
Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites NC <http://cicsnc.org/>
North Carolina State University <http://ncsu.edu/>
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