Common Dimensions

All variables are defined in terms of dimensions. For example consider a temperature measurement that was taken every minute for 1 hour. The temperature variable is defined to have the dimension of time. For some data products additional dimensions are required - see the dimensions section in the specific data product definition.

Instruments can be deployed on both stationary and moving platforms and the dimensions need to be able to reflect this. For stationary deployments the latitude and longitude are single valued and hence are set to a length of 1 in this case. For a moving platform these dimensions will be equal in length to time.

Trajectory

time

CF Standard Name: time

Length: <n>

units: seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Stationary Platform

time

CF Standard Name: time

Length: <n>

units: seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00

latitude

CF Standard Name: latitude

Length: 1

units: degrees_north

longitude

CF Standard Name: longitude

Length: 1

units: degrees_east

Moving Platform

time

CF Standard Name: time

Length: <n>

units: seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00

latitude

CF Standard Name: latitude

Length: <n>

units: degrees_north

longitude

CF Standard Name: longitude

Length: <n>

units: degrees_east

Report abuse