[CF-metadata] standard names for sea surface roughness variables

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:18:16 +0100

Dear Andy

> In this case "dominant" (which infers a method of calculation) is not the same as "primary" (which is used in the existing wave standard names to denote ranking of swell components). However, I agree we could omit the "dominant" to bring this more in line with other wave directions, and provide metadata to determine the method of calculation elsewhere - that would enable a more flexible approach....

Good. I agree. In that case, do you still need a new standard name for the
direction of the slope? Maybe you could use the existing
  sea_surface_wave_to_direction
for this purpose?

> sea_surface_wave_mean_square_slope_parallel_to_direction
> sea_surface_wave_mean_square_slope_normal_to_direction

I agree that the "to" here could be misunderstood. That's not your fault, of
course, but due to our peculiar use of "to" as a sort of adjective!

> I guess an alternative would be to use _along/_across instead of _parallel_to/_normal_to?

There are some existing names containing across_line, where "across" means
"normal to", so it would be consistent to use that word. There aren't any
existing names containing normal, perpendicular, along or parallel. I suggest

> sea_surface_wave_mean_square_slope_along_wave_to_direction
> sea_surface_wave_mean_square_slope_across_wave_to_direction

which might alleviate the ambiguity, perhaps? Or maybe we don't need to include
the "to" in any case for waves. Does the same ambiguity exist, when talking
about waves, as we have with winds being eastward or easterly etc.?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Thu Sep 27 2018 - 06:18:16 BST