Dear Jonathan, I can understand the argument that the concept of "region" is what you want in the standard name, and I'm happy to accept that. The problem that started this discussion remains, however. Namely, the current standard name definition for region includes a reference to the list of area_types specified within the CF Convention and an indication as to how that should be implemented.
regards, Martin ################################################# Dear Martin I agree with adding to the definition of region, and also area_type (for which this approach has also been advocated), that it may be convenient to store such variables as numbers with a flag_values and flag_meanings attribute. However I don't think it should be regarded as a different quantity, so I don't think it needs a different standard name. I don't think we should define standard numbers for regions or area_types, because this would be against the usual CF principle that files should describe their contents without need for reference to external tables. The representation of strings as numbers is not standardised, and is defined in the file by the flag attributes. That is why I regard it as an issue of encoding, more like scale and offset, and not a different quantity. Best wishes Jonathan _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
