[CF-metadata] Same parameter, different meaning (pressure)

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:26:00 +0100

Dear all

I don't fully understand Roy's and John's concerns. Is it that there are
various vertical coordinates that might be used to specify the position of
the sensor? With a standard name of sea_water_pressure a variable could
indeed have different vertical coordinates, such as depth below mean sea
level, below the geoid, or height above the sea floor. These would be
distinguished by the standard name of the vertical coord variable. (We don't
have standard names for all these yet, but they would be obvious extensions
of what we do have.) The use of an at_LEVEL phrase in a standard name shows
that the quantity is on a "named" surface (such as sea floor, top of
atmosphere, tropopause, or "the" surface i.e. the bottom of the atmosphere)
and in that case a vertical coordinate variable is not needed, because the
named surface defines the vertical coordinate as a function of horizontal
location.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Thu Aug 28 2008 - 01:26:00 BST