[CF-metadata] standard name proposals

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 09:43:06 +0100

Dear John

A few at a time is easier to deal with - thanks! As usual, I would like to
make these more precise, and also to conform with existing standard names where
appropriate. Your use of "radiance" and "irradiance" seems to be the reverse
of definitions I have found on the web, and also of the existing radiance
standard names; that is, it is radiance which is per unit solid angle. The
standard use of the terms appears to be without wavelength dependence;
"spectral" indicates this dependence. The canonical units are SI but obviously
any dimensionally equivalent unit is OK.

> seawater_conductivity units of msiemens/cm
sea_water_electrical_conductivity siemens/m

> seawater_chlorophyll_concentration units of micrograms/liter
chlorophyll_concentration_in_sea_water kg/m3

> upwelling_radiance units of microwatts/cm^2/nanometer
upwelling_spectral_irradiance W/m2/m

> downwelling_irradiance units of microwatts/cm^2/nanometer/steradian
downwelling_spectral_radiance W/m2/m/sr
>
> and since we use wavelength as a dimension for the last two parameters, I'd
> also like to simply propose
>
> wavelength units of nanometers
electromagnetic_wavelength m

At the same time, we can add the corresponding down/upwelling names.

I propose that we make the existing standard names longwave_radiance and
shortwave_radiance obsolete, because they don't indicate direction. It is a
pity that was overlooked. We will make these aliases to upwelling_*_radiance,
because they are equivalenced to NCEP GRIB codes which are +ve upwards.

Is the above all OK for you?

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Thu Jul 31 2003 - 02:43:06 BST