navigation information in GRIB2 datasets on THREDDS server

Hi,

I’m having some trouble figuring out how to get all the necessary projection information out of the GRIB2 datasets on the motherlode THREDDS server.

I need to know the values of most of the items from the GRIB2 Grid Definition Section (section 3).  For Lambert Conformal, the following values should be available.  (See Table 1 below)

However, I only see the navigation information on the THREDDS server in the fragment from a ncdump of the dataset (in this case NAM, 12KM) that is shown in table 2 below.

Specifically, I need:

Nx,Ny  (obvious from the grid)

La1, Lo1

ResCompFlag

Lov

Dx, Dy

Latin1, Latin2

Projection Center Flag

Scanning Mode

It’s not clear how the values given in Table 2 (from the THREDDS server) map to the values specified in the original GRIB2 file as they have different names, and there doesn’t appear to be enough values to specify all of this.  And even where I can guess that the one value maps to the other, I’m not sure if the units are compatible.

Any guidance would be appreciated.  It is possible that the values from the Grid Definition Section could simply be represented as an integer array in THREDDS?

Thanks.

Table 1:

Grid Definition Template 3.30: Lambert conformal

Octet Number(s)	Contents
15	Shape of the earth (see Code Table 3.2)
16	Scale factor of radius of spherical earth
17-20	Scaled value of radius of spherical earth
21	Scale factor of major axis of oblate spheroid earth
22-25	Scaled value of major axis of oblate spheroid earth
26	Scale factor of minor axis of oblate spheroid earth
27-30	Scaled value of minor axis of oblate spheroid earth
31-34	Nx - number of points along the X-axis
35-38	Ny - number of points along the Y-axis
39-42	La1 - latitude of first grid point
43-46	Lo1 - longitude of first grid point
47	Resolution and component flags (See Flag Table 3.3)
48-51	LaD - Latitude where Dx and Dy are specified
52-55	LoV - Longitude of meridian parallel to Y-axis along which latitude increases as the Y- coordinate increases
56-59	Dx - X-direction grid length (see note (1))
60-63	Dy - Y-direction grid length (see note (1))
64	Projection centre flag (see Flag Table 3.5)
65	Scanning mode (see Flag Table 3.4)
66-69	Latin 1 - first latitude from the pole at which the secant cone cuts the sphere
70-73	Latin 2 - second latitude from the pole at which the secant cone cuts the sphere
74-77	Latitude of the southern pole of projection
78-81	Longitude of the southern pole of projection

 

 

Table 2:

           

char Lambert_Conformal ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:grid_mapping_name = "lambert_conformal_conic" ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:standard_parallel = 25. ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:longitude_of_central_meridian = 265. ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:latitude_of_projection_origin = 25. ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:GRIB_earth_shape = "Earth spherical with radius of 6371229.0 m" ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:GRIB_earth_shape_code = 6 ;

                        Lambert_Conformal:DODS:strlen = 0 ;

            double y(y) ;

                        y:units = "km" ;

                        y:long_name = "y coordinate of projection" ;

                        y:standard_name = "projection_y_coordinate" ;

                        y:grid_spacing = "12.191001 km" ;

                        y:_CoordinateAxisType = "GeoY" ;

            double x(x) ;

                        x:units = "km" ;

                        x:long_name = "x coordinate of projection" ;

                        x:standard_name = "projection_x_coordinate" ;

                        x:grid_spacing = "12.191001 km" ;

                        x:_CoordinateAxisType = "GeoX" ;

 

 

 

-----
David Wojtowicz, Sr. Research Programmer, Sysadmin
Dept of Atmospheric Sciences / Computer Services
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
address@hidden  (217) 333-8390