On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Jonathan Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Etienne > >> The problem with area_type is that it mostly deals with "vegetation >> types" rather than "plant function types", some models make a >> distinction between them. >> For example, a "savanna" vegetation type is made of several "plant >> function types", such as grass, shrubs and deciduous trees > > I would see no objection to adding some PFTs to the area_type table. They > can be area types too, of course i.e. you could have an area covered by > grass or shrubs.
I would rather see something like actual land cover types, such as the IGBP classification: --- Water Evergreen Needleleaf forest Evergreen Broadleaf forest Deciduous Needleleaf forest Deciduous Broadleaf forest Mixed forest Closed shrublands Open shrublands Woody savannas Savannas Grasslands Permanent wetlands Croplands Urban and built-up Cropland/Natural vegetation mosaic Snow and ice Barren or sparsely vegetated --- As I mentioned earlier, some land surface/ vegetation models represent a particular surface type (say savanna) as a combination of different PFTs (such as grass, shrubs, trees, etc). As many models can have different PFTs, depending on their complexity, I don't see an advantage in making a standard name table for this, because its use would be limited. Although, if the list is comprehensive enough, it should be sufficient for all needs > >> Numeric values are easier to deal with in many models, and also in >> displaying (e.g. in grads) > > Yes, I appeciate that. If you use flag_values and flag_meanings, you can > have a data variable with numerical values, and it's still self-describing > because the flag attributes record a "key" to translate the numbers into > strings. Ok, I will look into that Thanks, Etienne > > Best wishes > > Jonathan > _______________________________________________ > CF-metadata mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
