Steve/Jonathan
I think it's a generation thing. I too was brought up on molarity at school and university in the 70s and was introduced to molality much later - hence my confusion and avoidance of the words. We need to be careful about looking at what pure chemists would use - it's chemical oceanographers and atmospheric chemists that count for us. Anyone got their finger on the pulse for those communities?
Cheers, Roy.
>>> Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory at reading.ac.uk> 12/4/2006 4:49 pm >>>
Dear Steve
> I belive the term "molality" is as well-known and well-defined to a
> chemist as "termperature" is to a thermodynamicist. I certainly knew it
> when I studied chemistry.
That's interesting. From schooldays I knew molarity not but molality (not
being a chemist). However, I suppose that we have to choose names which are
clear to a wide range of people, not just specialists in the field, and I
suspect that the average climate modeller would not be clear about either
molality or molarity. Hence moles_of_X_per_unit mass is preferable, I'd say.
We could use moles_of_X_per_unit volume, which is perfectly clear, but
we already use the word "concentration" to mean something per unit volume,
and I would guess that mole_concentration would be generally understood to
mean mol m-3.
These terms are unusual in having a unit in them (mol). Yes, we could instead
say amount_of_substance_concentration and amount_of_substance_per_unit_mass
since mole is the SI unit of "amount of substance". Is that clearer? I suspect
that it probably is not, to the average user, as it depends on recognising
"amount of substance" as a technical term.
Cheers
Jonathan
_______________________________________________
CF-metadata mailing list
CF-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
--
This message (and any attachments) is for the recipient only. NERC
is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the contents
of this email and any reply you make may be disclosed by NERC unless
it is exempt from release under the Act. Any material supplied to
NERC may be stored in an electronic records management system.
Received on Mon Dec 04 2006 - 10:16:33 GMT
