Dear Philip
> On the issue of ozone GROSS production and loss which I raised in
> (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/2007/001788.html) I am
> conflicted. This is a useful and commonly reported variable, but the
> definition is not universally agreed upon. In practice, experts generally
> use definitions that are within the same ball-park as each other, but an
> outside user could be led astray, and judicious care needs to be used when
> comparing figures from different models. Whether this is enough to
> stop it being accepted by CF, I don't know.
I don't know the details of this case, of course, but I don't think that's
a reason not to include a name for ozone gross production. If it is useful
to compare quantities from different datasets for certain purposes, even though
they may have somewhat different definitions, then it will be useful to assign
them a common name to indicate they are comparable. That is the main purpose of
standard names. To avoid misunderstanding, the definition could state what
distinctions are being ignored. For more exacting applications in which the
differences of definition are material, alternative more precisely phrased
standard names could be devised.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Received on Tue Nov 06 2007 - 16:39:54 GMT
