Assign dimensions from variables

Question

I have netCDF dataset with x, y as spatial dimensions (in Lambert conic projection) which are just enumerated values [0:495], [0:309], and lat, lon variables as 2D meshes with shapes (309, 495).

I want to assign lon, lat variables to x, y dimensions to get projected data over longitudes and latitudes, but I couldn't find any reference how to do this.
Converting existing dataset would be great, but acceptable options are also recreating new netCDF dataset from existing, or generating hdf-5 instead.

Sorry to realize that my question is unintelligible. I'll try with another example which does not imply geographic spatial projection.

I have netCDF dataset with 3 dimensions. Vertical dimension altitude is expressed in units hPa, while dataset contains variable height which maps each altitude level to meters. I want to change netCDF dataset and assign height variable to altitude dimension. So that when I read netCDF dataset with a program of choice, it will read vertical dimension as height in meters, instead altitude in hPa.

Hope it's easier to understand now.

Do you have all the parameters needed for the Lambert projection? — user3344003
If you mean the proj string, I have it, but that's not necessary as I have exact lat, lon coordinates for every x, y dimension point. — vlad
Reading your question and all the comments so far, it is still confusing (to me at least) what exactly you want. Could you revise/elaborate? What is the output if you do ncdump -h on your dataset? — Spencer Hill
@Spencer Hill, I edited my question and tried to explain with another example, hopefully easier to understand. — vlad

Charlie Zender Charlie Zender · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-03T02:18:14

Rename the dimension altitude to height. This makes height (not altitude) the coordinate variable. The netCDF Operators (NCO) do this with: ncrename -d altitude,height in.nc out.nc

Assign dimensions from variables

1 Answers