OceanSITES Data Format Reference Manual NetCDF Conventions and Reference Tables. Version 1.3. January 12, 2015.

Abstract

The main purpose of this document is to specify the format of the files that are used to distribute OceanSITES data, and to document the standards used therein. This includes naming conventions, or taxonomy, as well as metadata content.Intended users are OceanSITES data providers and users of OceanSITES data. OceanSITES uses NetCDF (Network Common Data Form),a set of software libraries and machine-independent data formats. Our implementation of NetCDF isbased on the community-supported Climate and Forecast Metadata Convention (CF), which providesa definitive description of thedata in each variable, and the spatial and temporal properties of the data.Any version of CF may be used, but it must be identifiedin the ‘Conventions’ attribute.The purpose of the format specification is to make OceanSITESdata easy to discover and to use. Any relevant metadata should be included whether it is part of the standard or not. For example, water depth, instrumentation descriptions, and detailed provenance are all useful fields and should be included if available.OceanSITES adds some requirements tothe CF standard,to make it easier to share in-situ data, to make it simpler for the GDACs to aggregate data from multiple sites,and to ensure that the data can be created and understoodby basic NetCDF utilities.