[CF-metadata] Salinity units

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:26:54 +0100

Dear Roy

> The reason I'm resurrecting this discussion is that we came under strong pressure from a group of physical oceanographers to use 'dimensionless' with no scaling factor instead of PSU for salinity. I was raising the issue on the list to see how widespread this opinion was.

Yes, I see. It is good to bring it up again since it has not been resolved.

I think giving a unit of 1 would be confusing and therefore not a good idea.
No-one would know what was being suggested e.g. whether salinity is about 0.035
or about 35. To specify it as psu and permit this as a udunit would be much
clearer, I believe. As you say, it would be good to know general opinion.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Wed Jun 17 2009 - 01:26:54 BST