2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Best Practices
8.3 Variable Attributes
Conventional variable attributes supply necessary metadata.
Recommendations
- Use attribute names from published conventions, such as
long_name for a human-readable descriptive name used
for labeling plots, for example:
T:long_name = "surface temperature"; // Use this
T:plot_label = "surface temperature"; // not this!
- For the
units attribute, use syntax of
the udunits
package, when possible. For example:
T:units = "celsius" ; // Use this
T:units = "degreesC" ; // not this
concentration:units = "1.0e-6" ; // Use this
concentration:units = "ppm" ; // not this
- Use the
standard_name attribute from the
CF standard names
list, if applicable, to identify the physical quantity that a
variable represents.
float can_tmp(time, lat, lon) ;
can_tmp:standard_name = "canopy_temperature" ; // This
float canopy_temperature(time, lat, lon) ; // not just this
2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Best Practices