Let's look at the dimensions and variables from the netCDF file elevations.nc:
ncdump -c elevations.nc
netcdf elev1 { dimensions: lat = 180 ; lon = 360 ; variables: float lat(lat) ; lat:standard_name = "latitude" ; lat:units = "degrees_north" ; float lon(lon) ; lon:standard_name = "longitude" ; lon:units = "degrees_east" ; short elev(lat, lon) ; elev:standard_name = "height" ; elev:missing_value = 32767s ; elev:units = "meter" ; // global attributes: :title = "Surface elevations" ; data: lat = 89.5, 88.5, 87.5, 86.5, 85.5, 84.5, 83.5, 82.5, 81.5, 80.5, 79.5, ... -88.5, -89.5 ; lon = 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, 12.5, ... 358.5, 359.5 ; }
lat
and lon
represent latitudes and longitudes, respectively.lat
and lon
are
examples of coordinate variables
representing the coordinate values along the lat
and
lon
dimensions.