NetCDF
NetCDF is a machine-independent data format offered by numerous institutions, particularly within the Earth and Ocean Science communities. It is important for the metadata in these files to follow a particular standard to properly generate a readable product.
Ocean Networks Canada has primarily adopted the CF (Climate Forecast), ACDD (Attribute Conventions Dataset Discovery), and OceanSites standards for describing metadata in NetCDF files, following the hierarchy CF > ACDD > OceanSites.
All NetCDF formats need to pass a CF compliance checker for the version stated.
NetCDF Common Global Attributes
An effort is underway to standardize ONC netCDF files with a set of consistent and compliant attributes. As this is built-out, the details of the common global attributes will be documented here. Currently, only one attribute is common to all netCDF files.
Global Attribute Name | Description | Standard |
---|---|---|
id | Contains DOI URLs for each applicable deployment as per our Data Citations page. | ACDD 1.3 |
External Resources
- BODC provides details about how NetCDF files can be used by MATLAB, IDL, Fortran, and C.