Dear Jonathan,
>
> > I suppose 'surface frozen water' could include frost as well as snow
> and ice.
> I suppose so. In that case the names are different and
> water_sublimation_flux
> is more general, but we should probably prefix it with surface_.
> Perhaps the
> water_[potential_]evaporation names need the same clarification - what
> do you
> think?
>
I think it would be a good idea to put 'surface' into the evaporation
names where appropriate. We have names that clearly refer to
evaporation and condensation within stratiform clouds and others that
refer to evaporation from the vegetation canopy or from soil. I think
the ones that don't specify a location are fairly clearly surface
quantities, but it wouldn't hurt to spell that out in the names
themselves. That's also consistent with the changes we made recently to
label clearly the 'surface snow' quantities. It would only affect 6
names:
lwe_thickness_of_water_evaporation_amount ->
lwe_thickness_of_surface_water_evaporation_amount
lwe_water_evaporation_rate -> lwe_surface_water_evaporation_rate
water_evaporation_amount -> surface_water_evaporation_amount
water_evaporation_flux -> surface_water_evaporation_flux
water_potential_evaporation_amount ->
surface_water_potential_evaporation_amount
water_potential_evaporation_flux ->
surface_water_potential_evaporation_flux.
Are these OK?
> > are we sure that we don't need a name for
> > sublimation in the atmosphere?
> There might be a need! We should add a name if it is requested, maybe
> with
> in_air to distinguish from surface.
>
Sorry, I wasn't very clear. What I really meant to say was, are you sure
that the existing water_sublimation_flux name is definitely intended to
be a surface name? It's true that all the other sublimation names refer
to 'surface', so I'm willing to believe it is. I'm just trying to be
ultra-careful and not re-label a name that may have been used to
represent atmosphere data as a surface only quantity.
Best wishes,
Alison
------
Alison Pamment Tel: +44 1235 778065
NCAS/British Atmospheric Data Centre Fax: +44 1235 446314
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Email: alison.pamment at stfc.ac.uk
Chilton, Didcot, OX11 0QX, U.K.
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Received on Mon Nov 22 2010 - 05:24:47 GMT
