NOAA Satellite and Information Service
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What is netCDF
NetCDF data is:
- Self-Describing. A netCDF file includes information about
the data it contains.
- Architecture-independent. A netCDF file is represented
in a form that can be accessed by computers with different ways
of storing integers, characters, and floating-point numbers.
- Direct-access. A small subset of a large dataset may be
accessed efficiently, without first reading through all the preceding
data.
- Appendable. Data can be appended to a netCDF dataset along
one dimension without copying the dataset or redefining its structure.
The structure of a netCDF dataset can be changed, though this sometimes
causes the dataset to be copied.
- Sharable. One writer and multiple readers may simultaneously
access the same netCDF file
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