how does NCL (netCDF?) deal with time?

From: Leslie Hartten <Leslie.M.Hartten_at_nyahnyahspammersnyahnyah>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:31:49 -0600

   I am just starting to work with both NCL and some new ascii datasets.
  The data have sub-daily resolution (e.g. 2-minute, 30-minute, or
hourly) and are written with date & time in a decimal day-of-year format
(e.g. the timestamps from 26 May 2006 are 147.00000, 147.02083,
147.04167, 147.06250, etc.). I want to have latitude, longitude, and
date/time be the coordinate variables for the geophysical data in the
files. I can very easily reformat the datasets before I start using
them in NCL; I'm just not sure what form I should put them in. I've
read every bit of NCL date/time related material I could find (including
the udunits documentation at unidata) and I'm no less confused. I'm
hoping someone on the list can help.

Q1: how does NCL store time (date and time of day)?

Q2: is there a date/time format I can use that will enable me to make a
plot of 1 day's worth of geophysical data and another plot of 2 weeks
worth, for which NCL will be able to create a human-readable time axis?
  (In other words, labelled with hours in the first case and with
Gregorian calendar days in the second case.)

Q3: has anybody done anything like this and found it to be an especially
good or an especially bad solution?

Cheers,
   Leslie

--
Dr. Leslie M. Hartten
CIRES, Univ. of Colorado       email: Leslie.M.Hartten_at_noaa.gov
216 UCB                        web:   http://cires.colorado.edu/~hartten
Boulder  CO  80309-0216        phone: (303)497-7052   fax: 497-6181
--
Disclaimer:  The contents of this message are mine personally and do not 
necessarily reflect any position of the Government of the United States 
of America, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the 
University of Colorado.
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Received on Thu Aug 28 2008 - 15:31:49 MDT

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