[CF-metadata] CF-1.0 registration of new names for SST

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:40:41 +0000

Dear Craig

I would find sea_[sub]skin_temperature more obvious than
[sub]skin_sea_surface_temperature because it feels like "surface" and
"[sub]skin layer" are conflicting concepts.

No problem with the surface or the temperature with a depth coord. I don't
think CF can mandate the depth coord but obviously you can in your
applications of CF.

I am worried about the foundation temperature. I understand your wish to
abolish the rather vague SST bulk temperature, but "foundation" seems vague
to me in its own right. Alison's options
> measured/modelled at the base of the thermocline so that the values are
> intrinsically free of diurnal variation
and
> or is the diurnal variation statistically removed from the data
strike me as different things, which should not have the same name.
Statistically removing the variation could mean just calculating the daily
mean, which is indicated by cell_methods, not the standard name, or it could
mean filtering the data, which could be indicated in some other way to be
devised. You write

> Only in situ contact thermometry is able to measure SSTfnd ...
> SSTfnd will be similar to a night time minimum or pre-dawn value at
> depths of ~1-5 m, but some differences could exist. Note that SSTfnd
> does not imply a constant depth mixed layer, but rather a surface
> layer of variable depth depending on the balance between
> stratification and turbulent energy and is expected to change slowly
> over the course of a day.

That sounds rather ill-defined to me. Could you not have different names for
the results of different methods for evaluating it?

best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Thu Feb 14 2008 - 09:40:41 GMT