[CF-metadata] Units: absolute vs difference

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 20:03:25 +0100

Dear John

> is there any convention for specifying that a quantity is a differences
> (like delta temperature) rather than absolute ?

There is not yet such a convention. I think the units should be unaltered.
This is really an aspect of the description of the quantity, I'd say - it has
to do with how it has been derived. A common case is where anomalies are
expressed relatively to a climatology; this might be done with a large range
of quantities and we may need a systematic way to indicate it. But we would
need to be able to say what the climatology was as well.

Could you describe the example you are dealing with?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Tue Aug 10 2004 - 13:03:25 BST