Re: 20050621:NetCDF header conventions

Unidata Support wrote:

> ------- Forwarded Message
>
>  
>
> > To: address@hidden
> > From: Ramesh_S_Mantri <address@hidden>
> > Subject: NetCDF header conventions
> > Organization: CSC
> > Keywords: 200506211706.j5LH6pZu017718
> >    
>
> Dear support folks,
>    I need advice on the NetCDF header conventions to follow. We store
> weather data in the NetCDF files - most of the time gridded data. 
>
> Do you recommend that we use NUWG conventions or COARDS or any 
> other? Please let me know.
>
> I was browsing at your website for info on conventions and found that
> the last recorded NUWG meeting on this topic was in 1995. But I couldn't
> find any concrete documentation on NUWG conventions.
>
> Could you please E-mail me some documentation? Thank you for your
> help. Regards,
> sincerely,
> Ramesh
>
>
> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
>
> Subject: NetCDF header conventions
> Date: Friday 17 June 2005 05:05 pm
> From: Ramesh_S_Mantri <address@hidden>
>
>
>
>   our application extracts weather (model) data and stores it in NetCDF
> files. We wish to adopt one standard header convention for all the
> NetCDF files generated by our application.
>
> I noticed that your grib decoder writes out NetCDF files using the NUWG
> convention. If just one standard notation were the goal, then NUWG would
> be as good as any other convention for us. I read a little about various
> possible conventions on your website.
>
> But one of the other goals is also the software that processes these
> NetCDF files - in particular the overlay generation software. At the moment
> we are using GrADS for overlay generation and GMT for generating
> base maps. How does NUWG relate to COARDS, if at all? The reason I
> am enquiring is because GrADS seems to process NetCDF files written
> in COARDS convention, although there are ways to make it work with
> other conventions, so I was told.
>
> Could you please suggest a convention to use? Do you see any problems
> with using NUWG convention as you do? Thank you for your help.
> sincerely,
> Ramesh Mantri
>
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Hi Ramesh:

We recommend using the CF-1 Conventions for gridded data. These are a 
superset of COARDS.

 http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/eaton/cf-metadata/index.html

NUWG is considered outdated; we are converting our decoder to use CF.

We also have some new recommendations for global metadata at:

 
http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/netcdf-java/formats/DataDiscoveryAttConvention.html

These are being considered for inclusion into CF.