The only thing that designates a variable as an auxiliary coordinate variable is the presence of the variable name in a coordinates attribute on another variable. There is nothing intrinsic to the variable that designates it as a coordinate variable. (Not so for true coordinate variables.) For this reason alone I think that we shouldn't impose restrictions on these variables (those designated as auxiliary) that are greater than for any other variable.
It seems to me that using the ancillary variable designation obfuscates the relationship that I am trying to indicate, which is that the auxiliary coordinate variable provides coordinate information for the variable it is attached to, but that it does not meet one or more restrictions imposed on true coordinate variables. The restriction that isn't met could be monotonicity, the presence of fill or missing values, or something else. Can someone provide a real-world example of why allowing auxiliary coordinate variables to deviate from the true coordinate variable restrictions poses a problem great enough that it should be forbidden? On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Jonathan Gregory <[email protected] > wrote: > Dear Randy > > Thanks for the clarification. I see no problem in having missing data where > there are non-missing aux coord vars. This is a usual situation. > > Best wishes > > Jonathan > _______________________________________________ > CF-metadata mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata > -- Jim Biard Research Scholar Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites Remote Sensing and Applications Division National Climatic Data Center 151 Patton Ave, Asheville, NC 28801-5001 [email protected] 828-271-4900
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