Ron,
The small group of biological oceanographers I have spoken with thus far fall into two camps: those who use ecosystem model outputs, and those who don't (I'm still waiting to talk with more of each). Of those who use ecosystem model outputs (and publish papers in the field), the term to describe moles of X per unit volume water due to Y is simply "concentration" (with no "molar" or "amount-of-substance" prefix). Those who don't use biological models call it "biomass" (even those who use physical models).
I also asked about terms for moles per kilogram, and was told that such a measure is rarely used by biologists, as it is too akin to the chemist's concepts of molality and molinity, which tend to imply a dissolved solution. Similarly, it appears that oceanographers avoid expressing "mass of X per unit volume water," as it is non-trivial to measure the dry mass of biological samples; and the resulting quantity would have to be called "density", which could be confused with water density.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu [mailto:cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu] On Behalf Of Roy Lowry
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 12:50 AM
To: cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] Proposed standard names for biological model outputs
Hello Jonathan,
Let's see what Mike turns up when he talks to his MBARI colleagues about the best way to describe substance held in biological material. A straw poll of four biologists in BODC indicated that biomass was the better understood term in this context.
I agree with you about molality. I again asked around the BODC data scientists and nobody could give me a definition of molality - including a couple of people with chemical oceanography PhDs.
Longer term we need to 'get smart' and provide the technology to manage synonyms operationally.
Cheers, Roy.
>>> Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory at reading.ac.uk> 12/05/06 6:27 PM >>>
Dear Roy
> I can see a future request for 'Nitrogen_molar_biomass_of_phytoplankton' and nobody realising that it is the same thing as the pre-existing 'molar_concentration_of_nitrogen_in_sea_water_due_to_phytoplankton'.
This kind of thing is certainly a problem but I don't think we can avoid it.
When people approach things from different backgrounds they have different expectations. We just have to point that the quantity exists under a different name already. This has happened before.
Of course, we can minimise it by using familiar terms, and that is one reason for doing so. However, I somewhat disagree with Steve's preference for the technical terms of specialised fields, as often these terms are unclear and confused - at least, I have got that impression from previous exercises to devise new standard names. In their own fields they are jargon which is understood, and the background is known, but to outsiders they can seem unintuitive and unclear. Obviously this is not always the case. We have to take each case on its merits.
Best wishes
Jonathan
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Received on Wed Dec 06 2006 - 09:42:55 GMT
