[Esip-documentation] Related data files in NetCDF

[Nan Galbraith]

The OceanSITES data management team would like to formalize a
method to include pointers to 'related data' files in our  NetCDF files.
We are serving long-term, open ocean data sets, and for some of these
there may be deployment/recovery cruise data, short term (single
deployment) data from 'guest' instruments, or ... some other kinds of
data that aren't in our collection but are available elsewhere.

The GCMD DIF has a Related_URL concept that would probably
work for us:

<Related_URL>
      <URL_Content_Type>
         <Type>Related URL Type keyword</Type>
         <Subtype>Related URL Subtype keyword</Subtype>
      </URL_Content_Type>
      <URL>URL up to 600 characters</URL>
      <Description>Text (may be multi-line)</Description>
</Related_URL>

I'm wondering if there are other standards that might also work, and if
there are standard ways to express something like this in NetCDF. I
was just looking at some ways to group attributes, but I haven't found
anything that's widely accepted.

In the ACDD, we 'references'  is one of the suggested attributes, taken
from CF; however it doesn't have the descriptive fields that the DIF
provides.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Cheers - Nan

-- 
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* Nan Galbraith        Information Systems Specialist *
* Upper Ocean Processes Group            Mail Stop 29 *
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution                *
* Woods Hole, MA 02543                 (508) 289-2444 *
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