Dear Jon

> 2. Representing the variability of a quantity within a time period (e.g. 
> expressing the annual mean plus a measure of the spread of values around the 
> mean).
> I assume that (2) is solved by using cell methods on the time axis (e.g. 
> cell_methods = “t: mean” or “t: standard_deviation” etc). Please correct me 
> if I’m wrong!

Quite right. The time period is recorded using bounds of the time coord var.

> 1. Representing the mean and spread of an ensemble of simulations (i.e. 
> boiling down a set of ensemble members to two variables: mean and spread).
> For (1) should I use a standard name modifier? If so, is there a reason why 
> “mean” and “standard deviation” are not listed as standard name modifiers? 
> “Standard error” is listed, but this is different from standard deviation, 
> and I think that what I will need is probably a standard deviation.

You can do this with cell_methods in exactly the same way, "e: mean" and
"e: standard_deviation" where e is the ensemble dimension. If you don't have
an ensemble dimension, you could put "realization: mean" and
"realization: standard_deviation", since "realization" is a standard_name
for ensemble member designators.

Best wishes

Jonathan
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