| Abstract: |
NetCDF, originally developed by Unidata, is currently in wide use by the atmospheric science community. It is a binary, array-oriented format, and is self-describing, architecture independent, compatible with multi-rate data and has well-developed interfaces for many programming languages including C++, FORTRAN, Python, Matlab, and IDL. EUFAR N6SP recommends NetCDF as the primary storage format for airborne data due to its flexibility in handling large, complex datasets, and its built-in metadata capabilities. See http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/ for more information.
For data in NetCDF format, EUFAR N6SP and N7DB recommend that at the very minimum, users follow the Climate and Forecast (CF) NetCDF conventions found at http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/. However, in this document, we propose a set of conventions which extend the CF conventions and incorporate features from the NCAR EOL-RAF metadata conventions. Also included in the present conventions are data discovery fields proposed by the US-based Interagency Working Group for Airborne Data and Telemetry Systems (IWGADTS). We highly recommend that the EUFAR N6SP NetCDF conventions outlined in this document are followed whenever possible. |
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