Dear All,
On Tuesday 7th December I am planning an update of the standard name
table in which I will be adding only a few of the changes that have been
agreed in recent weeks. Apologies for not giving the usual seven days
notice, but this 'mini' update is being done mainly for the purposes of
testing a new piece of software. Details of the planned changes to the
standard name table can be found at the end of this message. Should
problems arise during the software test, the small number of changes
means that they will be relatively easy to back out. Assuming all goes
well, I will schedule another update of the table in the near future to
add the rest of the agreed changes.
The software being tested is a new vocabulary editor that has been
developed at CEDA (Centre for Environmental Data Archival) of which the
British Atmospheric Data Centre forms a part. The development was
started approximately two years ago by Calum Byrom of Tessella plc and
over the last twelve months has been continued by Steve Donegan, a data
scientist and developer at CEDA. The vocabulary editor will greatly
simplify the task of maintaining the standard name table by reducing the
amount of manual file editing needed and removing the need for some
rather time consuming upload procedures. I will be able to send updates
simultaneously to the CF website and the NERC Vocabulary Server which is
looked after by Roy Lowry and his team at the British Oceanographic Data
Centre (BODC).
An important feature of the CEDA Vocabulary Editor is that keeps an
audit trail of all vocabulary terms entered into it. This information
will be displayed on web pages which will allow CF users to see at a
glance which standard names are currently under discussion, along with
their units and definitions. Names will be proposed and discussed on the
CF mailing list as now. When a new name is proposed I will create an
appropriate entry in the Vocabulary Editor and the name will appear on
the 'current work' web page. To view the page, go to
http://ndg.nerc.ac.uk/vocab-term-editor/home, click on the 'Climate and
Forecast Standard Names' link and then click on the 'View status of
current work' link. At the time of writing, the page is empty but I will
shortly begin adding entries for the names that will be added to the
table on Tuesday.
Once the editor is fully operational, I will periodically update the
entry for each name as its discussion proceeds on the mailing list. The
web page will show an audit trail of how a name has evolved, e.g.
changes in its wording or its definition. There will be a link to the
relevant thread on the mailing list so that users can easily access the
original discussion without having to trawl through the entire mailing
list contents. There will also be a space to record comments, such as
the reason for a particular name being accepted or rejected for
publication in the standard name table. Once a name has been accepted I
will be able to publish it on the CF website and the NERC Vocabulary
Server at the push of a button.
A name that has finally been accepted or rejected will be moved from the
'current work' web page to a 'completed work' web page. To see this, go
to
http://ndg.nerc.ac.uk/vocab-term-editor/home, click on 'Climate and
Forecast Standard Names' followed by 'View completed work'. The
completed work page will have exactly the same format as the current
work page but it will disallow any further edits to the names. Its
purpose is to act as a 'quick look' archive of standard names
discussions. The current and completed work pages are readable by all,
but access to the editing functionality is through password protected
accounts that will only be provided to those responsible for maintaining
the standard name table and the editor software. CF standard names is
the first vocabulary to be added to the new editor but it is planned
that other vocabularies will be added in due course to allow CEDA staff
to manage a number of lists maintained in the NERC vocabulary server.
Assuming that Tuesday's test is successful, I will then create entries
for all open standard names discussions in the Vocabulary Editor. I will
also post a more detailed explanation of the content of the current and
completed work pages.
Best wishes,
Alison
------
Changes to the standard name table planned for Tuesday 7th December 2010
1. Aliases for existing standard names
a. Atmosphere mass content names. Change proposed by Alison Pamment in
response to query raised by Tim Nightingale.
atmosphere_cloud_condensed_water_content ->
atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_condensed_water
atmosphere_cloud_ice_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_ice
atmosphere_cloud_liquid_water_content ->
atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_liquid_water
atmosphere_convective_cloud_condensed_water_content ->
atmosphere_mass_content_of_convective_cloud_condensed_water
atmosphere_convective_cloud_liquid_water_content ->
atmosphere_mass_content_of_convective_cloud_liquid_water
atmosphere_water_vapor_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_water_vapor
2. Clarifications to the explanations of existing names
a. area_fraction. Change proposed by Alison Pamment.
The explanation of area_fraction will be changed to refer to area_type
as the correct standard name for a variable describing the surface type
whose fraction is being calculated. Currently the explanation refers to
land_surface and land_cover which are aliases of area_type.
3. New names
a. Liquid water concentration in air and aerosol size names. Proposed
by Bruno Piguet.
mass_concentration_of_cloud_liquid_water_in_air; kg m-3
mass_concentration_of_drizzle_in_air; kg m-3
mass_concentration_of_rain_in_air; kg m-3
mass_concentration_of_liquid_water_in_air; kg m-3
b. Extinction coefficient name for CMIP5. Proposed by Michael Shulz and
Olivier Boucher.
volume_extinction_coefficient_in_air_due_to_ambient_aerosol; m-1
c. Diffuse radiation name for CMIP5. Proposed by Karl Taylor.
surface_diffuse_downwelling_shortwave_flux_in_air_assuming_clear_sky;
Wm-2
------
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 Dec 06 2010 - 12:25:45 GMT
