CSDMS Standard Names

From CSDMS
CSDMS Standard Names (CSN)
CSDMS asks that contributed models should be provided with a Basic Model Interface (BMI) which includes mapping input and output variable names to CSDMS Standard Names and providing model metadata. Information on how CSDMS Standard Names are used and generated has been organized into the following sections that each have their own page. (Each section heading below is a link to a separate page.) See the bottom of this page for a link to a current listing. A good introduction to the CSDMS Standard Names is provided by Peckham (2014). A somewhat outdated, high-level overview of the CSDMS Standard Names is also available as a Powerpoint presentation.

CSDMS Standard Names are an early form of research into the identification and categorization of scientific variables performed, in part, by Scott Peckham. Dr. Peckham has continued to develop and expand the ideas first expressed in CSDMS Standard Names. His latest work, Scientific Variables Ontology, includes a search tool that allows users to match model variables with standard names.

Standard Names is an element of the CSDMS Workbench, an integrated system of software tools, technologies, and standards for building and coupling models.

While it is always a good idea to use existing standards whenever possible, CSDMS discovered that other naming conventions, such as the CF Convention Standard Names were not well-suited to the needs of component-based modeling. This section explains our motivation for developing a new standard.

This section provides some background and basic information about the CSDMS Standard Names.

This section provides numerous examples of CSDMS Standard Names, organized by the main object under consideration and its parts or "subobjects".

The CSDMS Standard Names follow an object + quantity pattern with an optional operation prefix applied to the quantity part. This section provides the basic rules for constructing CSDMS Standard Names.

This section provides a set of templates and rules for constructing the object name part of a CSDMS Standard Name.

This section provides a set of templates and rules for constructing the quantity name part of a CSDMS Standard Name. Many quantity names include the name of a physical process and information about constructing process names along with numerous examples are given on the CSDMS Process Names page.

This section provides a set of templates and rules for constructing the optional operation part of a CSDMS Standard Name.

This section provides information on CSDMS Model Coupling Metadata (MCM) files and provides standardized model/variable metadata names for units, ellipsoids, datums, projections, "how modeled" and assumptions. It links to an extensive set of CSDMS Assumption Names and includes An Example Model Coupling Metadata file.