Goals

6.0 Goals

The CF Conventions have evolved and expanded since 1.0 release in 2003 but maintain their original goals.

CF is framed as a netCDF standard, but most CF ideas relate to metadata design in general so apply to other formats. The goals of CF are to

Locate data in space-time and as a function of other independent variables, to facilitate processing and graphics
Identify data sufficiently to enable users of data from different sources to decide what is comparable, and to distinguish variables in archives
Maintain backward-compatibility with prior standards (e.g. previous versions of CF, COARDS)