Rich et al,
Although there is the existing sea_water_pressure, let me add a few more thoughts into the mix, as a result of classifying our own content from our own observing systems.
So let's say I'm making an instrument, and describing the data the instrument produces. This instrument can be deployed in the ocean (sea water), or a lake (fresh water) or a stream (running fresh water). If I label the pressure variable "sea_water_pressure" (the only related choice), isn't that going to be wrong when the instrument is deployed in the lake? Can't we have a water_pressure variable?
While we're at it, it would be useful to have a general term called 'pressure'. Some sensors may work in any environment.
(I know that CF is tuned to label data sets, but in the brave new world of interoperability we now inhabit, it isn't possible to hand label every data set that is produced by instrument X. So it is useful to be able to label the data an instrument can produce; then we can automatically annotate the data with the appropriate standard variable labels.)
My proposal would be for the addition of the following names:
- pressure
- water_pressure
I think sea_water_pressure should fill the purpose of Rich's request, but if he really wants to distinguish between ocean pressure and other sea water bodies, no objection to including the additional term ocean_tempressureperature; it is a clear subset of sea_water_pressure.
John
At 5:15 PM -0500 2/24/08, Rich Signell wrote:
>CF folks,
>
>Don Murrya & I ran into a problem using the Integrated Data Viewer
>(IDV) last week that suggested the need for a standard way to
>determine whether a pressure variable is in water or the atmosphere.
>We currently have a "air_pressure" standard_name, but no
>"ocean_pressure".
>
>The IDV utilizes CF conventions, and when it sees pressure as a
>vertical coordinate, it uses a standard atmosphere to convert to
>height in meters for the purpose of visualization. This works fine
>for atmospheric pressure, but when I tried to view my oceanographic
>salinity and temperature profiles (which also have a vertical
>coordinate of pressure), of course it failed to plot them below the
>sea surface.
>
>I suggested to Don that the perhaps IDV could use the units of
>pressure to determine atmosphere or ocean, since oceanographers nearly
>always use decibars (one decibar being nearly equal to 1 meter of
>water).
>
>But a much better way would be to have a standard name that indicates
>that we are measuring pressure below the sea surface. (0 pressure = 0
>meters depth).
>
>Could just adding "ocean_pressure" as a standard name suffice?
>
>Thanks,
>Rich
>
>--
>Richard P. Signell (508) 457-2229
>USGS, 384 Woods Hole Rd.
>Woods Hole, MA 02543-1598
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>CF-metadata mailing list
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--
----------
John Graybeal <mailto:graybeal at mbari.org> -- 831-775-1956
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Marine Metadata Initiative: http://marinemetadata.org || Shore Side Data System: http://www.mbari.org/ssds
Received on Sun Feb 24 2008 - 16:11:16 GMT
