Dear Jim > Seems a shame that this wasn't originally handled with a standard > name of 'vertical_air_velocity' (or some such) that required a > 'positive' attribute. Both upward and downward could be covered with > no confusion.
If it was a separate attribute, it could be omitted, and probably sometimes would be (even if that was an error). I expect you, like me, have experienced frustrations with analysing datasets where the quantities are described but their sign conventions not stated. With CF standard_names this problem cannot arise. It imposes a small cost by increasing the number of standard_names that have to be defined, but it's very easy to agree such pairs of standard_names, and of course it only affects quantities that do have a sign, which is minority. So I don't think it's a shame at all. :-) It was a deliberate decision (made 15 years ago), which I think has been beneficial. Best wishes Jonathan _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
