There seems to be surprisingly broad support for this idea, so I've been
re-reading the thread, looking for a reasonable use case. I can't say that
I've found any description of why we actually need this - am I missing
something?

Anyway, going back to Aleksandar's original (slightly amended) proposal of
Jan 11 just for a moment... I'd like to clarify one detail. As far as I know,
ISO 8601 calls for the default time zone to be local, not UTC.

If we're going to add this option to CF, we should *at least* require the time
zone to be specified.  Allowing a default, and having that default NOT align
with ISO, is just too much to ask.  Either we're implementing ISO, or not -
changing the default meaning of the time zone would truly mislead our
imaginary post-apocalyptic researchers - and I know how much we all
worry about them.

From Wikipedia (my only available ISO documentation):

/Time zones in ISO 8601 are represented as local time (with the location //
//unspecified), as UTC, or as an offset from UTC.//
//If no UTC relation information is given with a time representation, the //
//time is assumed to be in local time. /

Cheers - Nan


On 1/11/13 12:00 PM, Aleksandar Jelenak - NOAA Affiliate wrote:
Dear All:

Here's the modified proposal for the datetime_iso8601 standard name:

standard_name: datetime_iso8601

Units: N/A

String representing date-time information according to the ISO
8601:2004(E) standard. Variables with this standard name cannot serve
as coordinate variables. Date-time information is in the Gregorian
calendar. For dates preceding the Gregorian calendar the date-time
information is in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. Possible date-time
string forms are:

<datetime> = <date> "T" <time> <timezone> ;

<date> = YYYY "-" MM "-" DD | YYYY "-" DDD ;

<time> = hh | hh ":" mm | hh ":" mm ":" ss | hh ":" mm ":" ss "." S
       | hh ":" mm ":" ss "," S ;

<timezone> = "" | "Z" | "+" hh | "+" hh ":" mm | "-" hh | "-" hh ":" mm

Where:

* "YYYY" is a four-digit year (0000-9999).
* "MM" is a two-digit month of the year (01-12).
* "DD" is a two-digit day of the month (01-31).
* "DDD" is a three-digit ordinal day of the year (001-366).
* "hh" is a two-digit hour (00-23).
* "mm" is a two-digit minute (00-59)
* "ss" is a two-digit second (00-60).
* "S" is one or more digits representing a decimal fraction of the
  second.

* The value of any designator when not specified is zero.

* If <timezone> is ommitted the default value is "Z".



--
*******************************************************
* Nan Galbraith        Information Systems Specialist *
* Upper Ocean Processes Group            Mail Stop 29 *
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution                *
* Woods Hole, MA 02543                 (508) 289-2444 *
*******************************************************


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