I agree with Jonathan that the distinction should be made in the
description of the quantity, and not in the units. We do have the standard
name air_temperature_anomaly, but anomaly implies that the difference is
with a climatology. If we had a standard name like
air_temperature_difference it seems that would be appropriate. But that
leaves an unresolved issue as to what the difference is with respect to.
Of course the same issue is present with an anomaly; we don't currently
have a mechanism for connecting an anomaly with the appropriate
climatology.
In view of the problems with interpreting exactly what a difference field
means, the question that comes to mind is why is WRF writing temperature
differences to the output file? Why not convert to a standard quantity
before output (or during conversion to CF compliant output)?
Brian
On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 10:49:33PM +0100, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> Dear John
>
> > we're looking at WRF model output with temperature differences in
> > Kelvin. unfortunately, our software package converts to Celsius by
> > subtracting 273. We could fix if we knew it was a temp difference
> > instead of an absolute temp.
>
> I don't think the units would be able to help you. Does the WRF model output
> distinguish in any other way between temperatures and temperature differences?
> Would your software be able to look at other attributes to decide what to do?
>
> Cheers
>
> Jonathan
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Received on Tue Aug 10 2004 - 18:40:58 BST
