Re: COARDS Climatological Time and IDV 1.1b2

• To: Mark A Ohrenschall <Mark.A.Ohrenschall@xxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: COARDS Climatological Time and IDV 1.1b2
• From: John Caron <caron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 13:09:27 -0800

Mark A Ohrenschall wrote:

Hi,

I'm trying to use IDV 1.1b2 to display a netCDF file containing a time-series of 12 "average" months. The IDV error message I'm getting is "Unable to make a Field from data with parameter name: mgv00." Here's the relevant info from ncdump:

[mao@panther dods]$ ncdump -c mgv00.nc
netcdf mgv00 {
dimensions:
       month = 12 ;
       lat = 1080 ;
       lon = 2160 ;
variables:
       byte mgv00(month, lat, lon) ;
               mgv00:long_name = "Characteristic Month Averages From Generalized 
GVI" ;
               mgv00:units = "uncalibrated" ;
       int month(month) ;
               month:units = "months since 0000-01-01" ;
       float lat(lat) ;
               lat:units = "degrees_north" ;
       float lon(lon) ;
               lon:units = "degrees_east" ;

// global attributes:
               :Conventions = "COARDS" ;
data:

month = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ;

I've used ncatted to change the month:units to "months since 1970-01-01" resulting in the same error message. However, if I change month:units to "days since 0000-01-01" that works (although the times displayed are in the year 0001 -- if I make month:units "days since 1970-01-01" there is no offset on the year).

So does IDV not accept "months since..." as a time unit? Am I correct according to COARDS if I do it according to the ncdump output shown above?

Thanks,

Mark

• References:
  • COARDS Climatological Time and IDV 1.1b2
    • From: Mark A Ohrenschall