Since we're storing station information in a variable, would it be more
"normal" to use variable attributes for naming authority, description,
and (optionally) naming_authority_reference (for URLS)?
Also, I have to admit that it might be going overboard to have a standard
name or set of standard names for secondary ids; we got into this
discussion because of a need for a station name for the draft version 1.6
of the CF Conventions manual, and maybe we've gone a bit too far beyond
the original need.
For example, the OceanSITES project uses an id AND a WMO number, but
there does not seem to me to be a need for these to be variables - either
one or both can be a global attribute.
In general, standards seem to be calling for more general metadata to
be stored as a global attribute rather than (or in addition to) being a data
variable; time and location extents are one example. So this proposal
is going in the opposite direction - I wonder if we could just make a minor
change to the draft 1.6 and store station as a required attributes?
Nan
On 9/15/11 6:25 AM, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
Dear Jeff
platform_primary_id: variable of character type containing an ID or
name of an observing station or other platform
platform_primary_id_authority: variable of character type,
specifying the naming authority or system used to choose
platform_primary_id
platform_secondary_id: variable of character type containing a
second ID or name of an observing station or other platform.
platform_primary_id must be present.
platform_secondary_id_authority: variable of character type,
specifying the naming authority or system used to choose
platform_secondary_id
platform_description: variable of character type which describes an
observing station or other platform
I think these are OK, thanks.
Still, I'd like to suggest something different - not necessarily arguing
for it, but just as an idea. The authority seems to be metadata about metadata
i.e. you can't understand the ID without the authority. If that is so, could
we put the authority and the ID in the same string e.g. "WMO station id 03808"?
Since we're not standardising the format of the ID and authority strings, I
don't these attributes could be processed automatically anyway, so really they
are a long_name for the platform. Again, if they are not standardised, why not
put primary, second (and any other) IDs all in the same string? Unless we have
standard rules for the contents and purposes of the various attributes to
make sure they are used consistently, I am not sure it helps to split up the
information in this way. Perhaps this would be just as good:
platform_name="cambourne"
platform_id="wmo station id 03808, midas station number 1395"
Probably there are good arguments against this which I have missed, and people
may have good use cases for separate attributes.
Best wishes
Jonathan
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