Hello Brendan

I believe the intent of the rotated pole grid mapping definition is to describe 
a polar coordinate reference system, based on the earth, but  with a different 
axis of rotation.

To do this, a new north pole location is specified in the earth polar 
coordinate reference system by
 - grid_north_pole_latitude
 - grid_north_pole_longitude
This defines a point on the surface of the non-rotated system.  A new 
rotational axis is defined through this location and the centre of the body.
A further rotation is then applied about this new axis, as defined by:
 - north_pole_grid_longitude (optional, default 0).

For a spherical geometry, this is equivalent to 3 rotation transforms of the 
basis (theta,phi) (ordered operation):
 - rotate in the theta-hat direction by:
 - Pi + grid_north_pole_longitude
 - rotate in the phi-hat direction by:
 - grid_north_pole_latitude
 - rotate in the theta-hat direction by:
 - north_pole_grid_longitude | 0

This provides a new basis which coordinates may be defined with respect to.

I keep an inflatable globe on my desk to help me with this.  I have not found a 
clear diagram on line which illustrates this unambiguously, or managed to draw 
one for myself; I would like to.

I hope this information is correct and useful.

mark

________________________________
From: CF-metadata [[email protected]] on behalf of DeTracey, 
Brendan [[email protected]]
Sent: 16 October 2014 12:49
To: [email protected]
Subject: [CF-metadata] Rotated pole definition

Hi,

I am looking for clarification on the rotated pole definition.  Is the globe 
rotated such that the north pole traces a great circle from its original to its 
new position? And then rotated counter clockwise  about the new pole by 
north_pole_grid_longitude degrees? There is not enough detail in the CF 
document describing this.

Brendan
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