CF-netCDF Standardization

NetCDF has long been a de facto standard for data storage and access in several communities. More recently it has been recognized by the NASA Standards Process Group and the NOAA IOOS DMAC as a de jure standard. Within the OGC, CF-netCDF is being considered as an extension to the latest recognized version of the WCS. A new initiative is underway to establish CF-netCDF as an OGC binary encoding standard in its own right. The idea is that, establishing CF-netCDF as a separate OGC encoding standard will simplify the process of using it as a payload for other standard access protocols such as the WFS and SOS. The approach is modeled on that taken for establishing KML as an OGC standard for XML encoding. One difference is that CF-netCDF will be standardized with a core and a set of extensions.. The standardization process for the core and each of the extension will involve the following steps: -- Make the existing NASA standard the basis for the OGC Core Candidate Standard for CF-netCDF -- Submit an initial draft Candidate Standard to the OGC Technical Committee (TC) -- Form a CF-netCDF Standard Working Group (SWG) -- In the CF-netCDF SWG, refine the Candidate Standard document into a draft for public comment -- Submit the Candidate Standard to the OGC TC to be submitted for public comment -- Incorporate public comment suggestions and submit the result as an OGC Standard Specification. In parallel initiatives will be undertaken for extension standard for specific CF conventions (e.g., gridded data, point data collections, swath data, etc.)., for netCDF APIs, and for NcML (the netCDF Markup Language)-GML. The presentation will outline the plan and provide a report on the status of the initiative at the time of the meeting.