[CF-metadata] hydrosphere

From: Philip J. Cameronsmith1 <cameronsmith1>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 14:57:37 -0800 (PST)

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Jonathan Gregory wrote:

> Dear Roy
>
>> I have been using the term 'water column' in our vocabularies to identify
>> any body of salt or fresh water. The term 'hydrosphere' has been used for
>> the same purpose elsewhere.
>>
>> I would welcome CF standard names embracing the concept of 'water column'
>> under any label as it would firm up the mappings between the BODC
>> vocabularies being used by SeaDataNet and CF (although it would weaken
>> mappings between CF and GCMD who clearly differentiate between salt and
>> fresh water). However, although using the word 'sea' for this concept
>> would overcome legacy issues I worry about the potential for confusion.
>
> I'm replying on the email list as I think this is principally a matter of
> naming rather than the subgrid convention.
>
> Yes, I think "hydrosphere" would be a possible word to use when we need to
> refer to properties of the whole mass of water, in the context where we
> currently use "ocean" e.g. for large-scale transports. We also need a word
> for the material, which we call sea_water, to refer to its properties such
> as salinity, density, velocity and so on. Is there a word which means ocean,
> sea, lake or river? In any language?
>
> Cheers
>
> Jonathan

Hi,

FWIW, I think of 'hydrosphere' as including ground water, clouds, and ice.
Is that what is intended here?

Would 'water_bodies' work for ocean+sea+lakes+rivers ?

Best wishes,

      Philip



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Dr Philip Cameron-Smith Energy & Environment Directorate
pjc at llnl.gov Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
+1 925 4236634 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA94550, USA
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Received on Mon Feb 04 2008 - 15:57:37 GMT