7 February 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks comments on an OGC discussion paper, netCDF Uncertainty Conventions (netCDF-U) 1.0. This discussion paper proposes a set of conventions for managing uncertainty information within the netCDF classic (also known as netCDF3) data model and format.

The main mechanism for modeling uncertainty in netCDF-U files consists of annotating the netCDF data variables with uncertainty-related semantics based on the Uncertainty Markup Language (UncertML) dictionary.

The netCDF-U Conventions are applicable to data encoded in the netCDF3 format, with possible limitations, depending on conflicting conventions to which a given netCDF dataset may also be compliant. (A netCDF data set may be compliant with more than one convention.)

The netCDF-U Conventions are designed to be fully compatible with the netCDF Climate and Forecast Conventions (netCDF-CF), the de-facto standard for much of the data in the Fluid Earth Science community.

This discussion paper may relate to other OGC standards and discussion papers that make use of the netCDF3 data format. In addition, the work described in the paper may have implications for future OGC standards work directed at communicating geospatial data provenance and uncertainty in contexts other than netCDF.

The netCDF Uncertainty ConventionsDiscussion Paper can be accessed at: https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/46702

Members of the public may subscribe to the netCDF-U mailing list: https://lists.opengeospatial.org/mailman/listinfo/netcdf-u and may access the wiki: http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/NetCDFu/WebHome.

Comments can be directed to OGC via the netCDF-U mailing list above.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 480 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.