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A central element of the CF Conventions is the CF Standard Name Table. The CF Standard Name Table uniquely associates a standard name with each geophysical parameter in a data set, where each name provides a precise description of physical quantities being represented. Note that this is the string
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The CF conventions were introduced in 2003, after several years of development by a collaboration that included staff from U.S. and
European climate and weather laboratories. The conventions contained generalizations and extensions to the earlier Cooperative Ocean/Atmosphere Research Data Service
32:
variable represent, and of the spatial and temporal properties of the data, including information about grids, such as grid cell bounds and cell averaging methods. This enables users of files from different sources to decide which variables are comparable, and is a basis for building software
28:. The metadata defined by the CF conventions are generally included in the same file as the data, thus making the file "self-describing". The conventions provide a definitive description of what the data values found in each
94:. They are also used as a technical foundation for a number of software packages and data systems, including the Climate Model Output Rewriter (CMOR), which is post processing software for climate model data, and the
743:. 25th Conference on International Interactive Information and Processing Systems (IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, 89th American Meteorological Society Meeting.
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The CF conventions have been adopted by a wide variety of national and international programs and activities in the Earth sciences. For example, they were required for the
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98:, which distributes climate and other data. The CF conventions have also been used to describe the physical fields transferred between individual Earth system model
54:(COARDS) conventions and the Gregory/Drach/Tett (GDT) conventions. As the scope of the CF conventions grew along with its user base, the CF community adopted an
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attribute, not the name of the parameter. The CF standard name table identifies over 1,000 physical quantities, each with a precise description and associated
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as a recommended standard (number 08-012) for the representation and transport of gridded data. The CF conventions are being considered by the
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version 2021b supports netCDF CF Convention. Averaging can be performed during import to allow handling of large datasets in a GUI software.
352:) of the CF conventions. The authors of the CFDM and CF-Python currently assert a desire to fully support all aspects of the CF conventions.
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146:, but its structure is general and it has been adapted for use with other data formats. For example, using the CF conventions with
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data, in the atmosphere, ocean, and other physical domains. It was designed primarily to address gridded data types such as
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As an example of the information provided by CF standard names, the entry for sea-level atmospheric pressure includes:
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Dunlap, R. L. Mark, S. Rugaber, V. Balaji, J. Chastang, L. Cinquini, C. DeLuca, D. Middleton, and S. Murphy (2008).
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is used to impose a regular structure. However, the CF conventions are also applicable to many classes of
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assessment reports. They are promoted as an important element of scientific community coordination by the
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Python library "draws heavily from the NetCDF CF Metadata
Conventions as a source for its data model".
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307:. Guidelines for construction of CF standard names are documented on the conventions web site.
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Standard for the CF Metadata
Conventions (Marine Metadata Interoperability Project page)
741:"Investigation of using HDF5 archival information packages (AIP) to store NASA ECS data"
550:"Report of the 12th Session of the JSC/CLIVAR Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM)"
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Conventions should be developed only as needed, rather than anticipating possible needs.
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471:"Maintaining and Advancing the CF Standard for Earth System Science Community Data"
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Data should be self-describing, without external tables needed for interpretation.
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Conventions should not be onerous to use for either data-writers or data-readers.
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Standards
Process Group (SPG) and others as more broadly applicable standards.
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Projects and Groups
Adopting or Encouraging the CF-Conventions as a Standard
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Metadata should be readable by humans as well as interpretable by programs.
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Python library parses and decodes data stored according to CF Conventions.
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Redundancy should be avoided to prevent inconsistencies when writing data.
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Specific CF metadata descriptors use values of attributes to represent
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716:"Metadata Standards for Gridded Climate Data in the Earth System Grid"
622:"Metadata Standards for Gridded Climate Data in the Earth System Grid"
515:"Web Coverage Service (WCS) 1.1 extension for CF-netCDF 3.0 encoding"
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669:"Earth system curator: metadata infrastructure for climate modeling"
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and have been adopted by a number of groups for such applications.
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is a data analysis package built on a complete implementation (
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at sea level is the quantity often abbreviated as MSLP or PMSL.
102:, such as atmosphere and ocean components, as the model runs .
586:"Issues Related to the Dissemination of Climate Model Output"
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Several principles guide the development of CF conventions:
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model. In
December 2008 the trio of standards, netCDF+CF+
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data, intended to promote the processing and sharing of
444:"GDT netCDF conventions for climate data, version 1.3"
419:"Conventions for the Standardization of NetCDF files"
568:"Data Issues for WCRP Weather and Climate Modeling"
20:conventions are conventions for the description of
142:CF originated as a standard for data written in
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699:: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
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88:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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804:The CF Metadata Convention (BADC page)
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84:Coupled model intercomparison projects
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215:Description of associated activity:
839:Earth sciences metadata conventions
739:Yang, M.; R. Duerr; C. Lee (2009).
358:parses CF Conventions and creates
320:description: sea_level means mean
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755:"NetCDF Importing and Processing"
844:Meteorological data and networks
819:Ocean Data Standards on Metadata
446:. March 14, 1999. Archived from
294:, and climatological statistics.
92:World Climate Research Programme
86:, which are widely used for the
776:"Metadata - Iris Documentation"
604:"Climate Model Output Rewriter"
16:The Climate and Forecast (CF)
1:
566:Kinter, James L. III (2005).
205:(audit trail of operations),
809:NASA Standards Process Group
259:Description of coordinates:
120:numerical weather prediction
110:CF is intended for use with
602:Doutriaux, Charles (2010).
33:applications with powerful
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421:. May 1995. Archived from
402:"The CF metadata standard"
400:Gregory, Jonathan (2003).
82:output data collected for
74:Applications and user base
686:10.1007/s12145-008-0016-1
673:Earth Science Informatics
490:"CF Metadata Conventions"
316:air_pressure_at_sea_level
536:August 23, 2010, at the
324:, which is close to the
150:data has been explored.
148:Hierarchical Data Format
469:Lawrence, B.N. (2003).
286:Meaning of grid cells:
275:); time specified with
645:. 2006. Archived from
643:"NetCDF in ArcGIS 9.2"
513:Domenico, Ben (2009).
279:("time since T0") and
138:Supported data formats
799:CF Metadata Home Page
584:Taylor, Karl (2005).
225:Description of data:
49:History and evolution
106:Supported data types
620:Drach, Bob (2002).
356:NetCDF-Java Library
335:canonical units: Pa
239:auxiliary_variables
100:software components
714:V. Balaji (2008).
488:Rew, Russ (2010).
132:observational data
122:model outputs and
43:data visualization
37:, grid remapping,
362:objects from them
360:Coordinate System
154:Design principles
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779:. Retrieved
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452:. Retrieved
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423:the original
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330:Air pressure
309:
297:
288:cell_methods
269:grid_mapping
177:
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128:data binning
109:
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283:attributes.
261:coordinates
251:flag_values
247:valid_range
191:institution
124:climatology
116:forecasting
828:Categories
781:2023-02-10
761:2021-05-11
653:2010-06-23
429:2010-06-23
387:References
221:experiment
207:references
26:data files
366:OriginPro
346:CF-Python
322:sea level
235:long_name
834:Metadata
534:Archived
454:June 23,
340:Software
281:calendar
18:metadata
555:. 2009.
217:project
211:comment
203:history
195:contact
60:OPeNDAP
373:xarray
271:(with
265:bounds
199:source
144:netCDF
41:, and
30:netCDF
726:(PDF)
719:(PDF)
607:(PDF)
589:(PDF)
571:(PDF)
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518:(PDF)
500:(PDF)
493:(PDF)
405:(PDF)
326:geoid
227:units
187:title
701:link
456:2010
380:Iris
378:The
371:The
350:CFDM
114:and
68:NASA
64:IOOS
681:doi
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