I think Bryan has a very valid point. A basic principle of sound vocabulary content governance is that if it's published don't change it. If it's wrong, deprecate it and replace it by something else. One can never assume that something published has never been used.
Cheers, Roy.
-----Original Message-----
From: cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu [mailto:cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gregory
Sent: 29 September 2009 10:26
To: Bryan Lawrence
Cc: Ed Bueler; Andy Aschwanden; cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu; Magnus.Hagdorn at ed.ac.uk
Subject: [CF-metadata] Standard names for Glaciology and ice-sheet modeling: land_ice, sea_ice, floating_ice, ice shelves...
Dear Bryan
> > I see that the existing standard names of land_ice say that it means resting
> > on bedrock. They were introduced before the floating_ice, which was intended
> > from an atmospheric or oceanic point of view, when sea-ice and ice-shelves may
> > have to be treated similarly. I propose that we redefine land_ice to mean
> > glaciers, ice-sheets and ice-shelves; floating_ice can continue to mean sea-ice
> > or ice-shelves, and we can introduce ice_shelf or grounded_land_ice if we
> > need them.
>
> Without knowing the details I don't like the sound of "redefining". Would there
> be cases of existing data marked up with land_ice which would fall foul of
> such a change?
Good question. I should have said, looking at those names, that I suspect not.
I don't think CF is currently widely used for land ice (Glimmer supports it)
and I think this issue would have come up before if someone wanted to deal with
ice-shelves specifically. But if anyone knows of a case where making this
redefinition would be a problem, they should speak up. I was responsible for
the land_ice names, with Magnus Hagdorn, some years ago, and I guess that the
intention of saying "resting on bedrock" was to make doubly clear we meant
land-ice, not sea-ice, rather than to exclude ice-shelves. Magnus may have a
view.
Best wishes
Jonathan
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Received on Tue Sep 29 2009 - 10:25:18 BST
