OGC NetCDF specifications: Towards a unified Interface for Earth Observation data in the Geospatial Information domain

The purpose of the OGC netCDF Standardization Working Group (SWG) is to extend further the existing netCDF standard with extension modules for additional data models, encodings, and conventions. The scope is to use netCDF as a unified model and interface for encoding and accessing multidisciplinary Geosciences data. This has facilitated the interoperability across the diverse Geoscience disciplines in the geospatial information area. OGC netCDF SWG has developed a primer document to provide an overview of the current OGC netCDF standards suite and describe the possible extensions. These extensions have been recognized to fill the gap between the netCDF Community (e.g. Climate Changes, Atmospheric and Oceanography Communities) and the Geospatial Information Community (e.g. GIS, Geo-Web, etc.). This is pursued by supporting modeling and encoding of digital geospatial information representing space/time-varying phenomena. OGC netCDF SWG, has recently recognized a set of useful specifications (e.g. semantics, conventions, and encodings) to be specified for improving interoperability among the systems using the netCDF technology. They address important requirements coming from the netCDF Community and consider the present geospatial information landscape, i.e. ISO standards, CF conventions, the other OGC specifications, W3C specification for spatial data on the Web, etc. The main netCDF developments and related challenges considered by the presentation are:

(Discovery) Metadata conventions; Advanced «Reference» conventions; Earth Observation Conventions; Semi-structured Encodings.