Hi David,

Yes, "type" and "ftype" are conceptually independent. "pasture" refers to a 
land usage category and "C4" refers to a plant functional type which can occur 
in and land usage category.

cheers,
Martin
________________________________
From: David Hassell [[email protected]]
Sent: 06 January 2017 12:24
To: Juckes, Martin (STFC,RAL,RALSP)
Cc: Jonathan Gregory; Karl Taylor; Pamment, Alison (STFC,RAL,RALSP); 
[email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] Composite area types in CMIP6 data

Hello Martin,

A potential issue with specifying two scalar coordinate variables is that each 
one must be interpreted as spanning an independent, size 1 dimension (as 
clarified in #104<http://cf-trac.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/104#comment:64>). Is that 
the intention, here? To combine them onto one dimension you would have to make 
the scalar coordinates into 1-d coordinates:

dimensions:
    x = 1 ;
variables:
    float pastureFracC4(x, time, lat, lon) ;
        pastureFracC4:coordinates = "type ftpye" ;
        pastureFracC4: standard_name = "area_fraction";
    char type(x, strlen) ;
        type:long_name = "Pasture Land" ;
        type:standard_name = "area_type" ;
    char ftype(x, strlen) ;
        ftype:long_name = "Plant Functional Type" ;
        ftype:standard_name = "area_type" ;
data:
type = "patsures" ;
ftype = "c4_plant_functional_types";

I suppose it's a question of the science that your trying to capture...

All the best,

David

On 6 January 2017 at 11:43, 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hello,

In CMIP6 we have a request for some data on pasture land with C4 functional 
type. We already have CF area types for pasture and c4 plants in general. We 
could construct the required information as follows:

    float pastureFracC4(time, lat, lon) ;
        pastureFracC4:coordinates = "type ftpye" ;
        pastureFracC4: standard_name = "area_fraction";
        ......
    char type(strlen) ;
        type:long_name = "Pasture Land" ;
        type:standard_name = "area_type" ;
    char ftype(strlen) ;
        ftype:long_name = "Plant Functional Type" ;
        ftype:standard_name = "area_type" ;
data:
 type = "patsures" ;
 ftype = "c4_plant_functional_types";

This would provide the information that the variable pastureFracC4 refers to 
areas that are both "pastures" and "c4_plant_functional_types". An altenative 
would be to add a new area type, but I have the feeling that the area_type list 
will become unmanagable if we keep adding new terms for combinations of 
existing terms.  Can anyone see a problem with using two area_type coordinates?

regards,
Martin
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--
David Hassell
National Centre for Atmospheric Science
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading,
Earley Gate, PO Box 243, Reading RG6 6BB
Tel: +44 118 378 5613
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/
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