diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 2b78a951ab3..50106201d1e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ### Changed
 
+- Made the POSITIVE field attribute defaults to "down" in case it is not found
+- VLOCATION is not querried in MAPL_VerticalMethods.F90 for rank 2 fields
 - Fixed time print in Cap GC (from slashes to colons)
 - Added ability to read the attribute with explicit type "string" of a netcdf variable.
 - Start to implement changes for vertical regridding in ExtData
diff --git a/base/MAPL_VerticalMethods.F90 b/base/MAPL_VerticalMethods.F90
index 205e3c6416f..2627297bdd1 100644
--- a/base/MAPL_VerticalMethods.F90
+++ b/base/MAPL_VerticalMethods.F90
@@ -490,17 +490,21 @@ subroutine append_vertical_metadata(this,metadata,bundle,rc)
 
         do i=1,numVars
            call ESMF_FieldBundleGet(bundle,i,field,_RC)
-           call ESMF_AttributeGet(field,name="POSITIVE", value=positive, _RC)
+           positive = 'down'
+           call ESMF_AttributeGet(field,NAME="POSITIVE",isPresent=isPresent,_RC)
+           if (isPresent) then
+              call ESMF_AttributeGet(field,name="POSITIVE", value=positive, _RC)
+           end if
            if (i .eq. 1) this%positive=positive
            if (i .gt. 1) then
               _ASSERT(this%positive==positive,"Fields have mistmatched positive attributes")
               this%positive=positive
            end if
            call ESMF_FieldGet(field,dimCount=FieldRank,_RC)
-           call ESMF_AttributeGet(field,name="VLOCATION", value=location(i),_RC)
            if (fieldRank==2) then
               varDims(i)=0
            else if (fieldRank==3) then
+              call ESMF_AttributeGet(field,name="VLOCATION", value=location(i),_RC)
               call ESMF_FieldGet(field,farrayPtr=ptr3d,_RC)
               varDims(i)=size(ptr3d,3)
               if (location(i) == MAPL_VLocationNone) then