[CF-metadata] omega

From: Brian Eaton <eaton>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:36:02 -0700

Bryan, thanks for the details. They have been helpful and I find your
arguments convincing.

While I find lagrangian_tendency_of_pressure to be an accurate description
of the quantity, it seems the issue is really one of name recognition. I
have to admit that if I were looking for Dp/Dt in the list I might well
miss the term lagrangian_tendency_of_pressure because it's not common
usage. On the other hand, as Bryan points out,
vertical_velocity_in_pressure_coordinates is a standard usage, even if it's
not literally as accurate. To me that's important. Recall that we
had similar discussions concerning the use of the term "flux" rather than
"flux_density", and I made the argument at that time that the units make it
unambiguous what the quantity actually is. Bryan makes the same case for
omega being unambiguously identified by it's units: there should be no
confusion with the quantity w(x,y,p) which has units of m/s and not Pa/s.

Jonathan made the point that having a more accurate name helps to avoid
misinterpretation by folks who don't read the description. A counter
argument is that a more accurate but uncommon name might not be discovered
in the first place. We've had plenty of requests from users for names of
quantities that already existed in the table, so this is a real concern.
It's mitigated in this instance by the fact that omega already exists in
the table as an alias to whatever name we eventually decide on. But that's
not the case for vertical velocity components in other dimensionless
vertical coordinate systems.

So I'm now favoring the term vertical_velocity_in_pressure_coordinates.
Hope it's not too late to change my vote :-)

Brian
Received on Thu Feb 12 2004 - 14:36:02 GMT