Dear @davidhassell

Thanks for this summary. I agree with **(A)**, **(B)** and **(E)** as given.

Re **(C)**, I would suggest that only the UGRID attributes which can appear on 
data variables should be added to CF Appendix A. If I have read the document 
correctly, these are `mesh`, `location` and `location_index_set`. The other 
attributes belong to mesh variables. To prevent accidental collision with CF, 
it would nonetheless be useful to tabulate them, but I'd suggest we put them in 
a new CF appendix specifically about the UGRID mesh topology variable, 
consisting of the table with an introductory sentence or two. This would be 
like the treatment of the attributes of the grid mapping variable, which are in 
a table in Appendix F, not in Appendix A. I note that the geometry variable 
attributes appear in Appendix A, but there are only five of them, whereas there 
are 18 attributes of the mesh topology variable.

Re **(D)**, if Bert @hrajagers and UGRID colleagues are OK with dropping 
`cf_role` for connectivity variables, that's good. They could continue to be 
allowed but deprecated, rather than disallowed. That's a decision to be made 
when the conformance rules **(B)** are written. It seems to me that `cf_role` 
is also redundant on the mesh topology variable, because it must also have a 
`topology_dimension` attribute, it seems. Couldn't that be used as the defining 
characteristic of a mesh topology variable? If so, this `cf_role` could also be 
deprecated; it can't be disallowed if current software depends on it, as Bert 
says.

**(F)** I proposed earlier that we could add a short subsection of CF section 1 
to introduce UGRID and its purpose, to make clear its special synergy with CF, 
to remark on the appearance of attributes in CF appendices, and to say that it 
has its own conformance document which complements the CF conformance document. 
What do you think?

I agree with you that the relationship between domains of different data 
variables is not currently considered in the CF data model, but not 
inconsistent with the data model. If UGRID is not being included in CF, we 
don't have to consider it at the moment.

Regarding Ryan @rabernat's comment, I think it would be fine to consider SGRID 
as well, but let's do it as a separate issue, and perhaps after UGRID, because 
we may not have enough mental capacity to deal with both at once.

Best wishes

Jonathan


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