[CF-metadata] Surface air temperature, etc.

From: Jonathan Gregory <jonathan.gregory>
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 08:30:41 +0100

Dear Curt

> no standard name for "surface air temperature." Though this quantity has an
> unusual definition, involving non standardized and sometimes inconsistent
> heights above the surface, it is typical output from most atmosphere and
> coupled ocean-atmosphere models.

The standard name of "air_temperature" should be used, with a scalar coordinate
variable or a size-one dimension of height, specifying 1.5 m, 2 m or whatever
it happens to be.

> daily max and min values for surface air temperature.

Daily max values are indicated by a cell_methods attribute specifying
"time: maximum within days" and similarly for min, where "time" is the name
of the time dimension or time scalar coordinate variable.

> no sea ice concentration variable

There is a standard name of sea_ice_area_fraction i.e. what is variously
called sea ice concentration, fraction or amount. It is dimensionless.
sea_ice_extent is the area which has sea ice exceeding a threshold
area fraction.

These three equivalences and others which may be relevant are detailed in
the table of correspondences between PCMDI variable names and standard names,
linked from the web page for the standard name table.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Thu Oct 09 2003 - 01:30:41 BST