Dear All,
Early in December I advertised a planned update to the standard name table to add a small number of names and act as a test for a new vocabulary editor that has been developed at CEDA. Unfortunately, our efforts at the time were scuppered by serious network problems. Since then a number of partial tests of the system have taken place and bugs ironed out of the communications with the NERC vocabulary server. I am delighted to be able to say that the system is now fully functioning and will be operational from today. Many thanks to Steve Donegan at CEDA and Roy Lowry and Olly Clements at BODC for their continued efforts to make the system operational.
A number of changes to the standard name table have been successfully sent to the vocabulary server and these will be published at 2 a.m. GMT on 24th March, i.e., tomorrow. Tomorrow I will also update the standard name table on the CF website and this will keep the date information synchronised on the two systems. The planned changes to the standard name table can be found at the end of this email.
Now that the vocabulary editor is operational I will begin the process of adding entries for all standard names currently in the pipeline, whether already accepted or still under discussion. This will take some time as there have been quite a number of new names proposals since December. The list of pending names can be viewed by going to
http://ndg.nerc.ac.uk/vocab-term-editor/home, and clicking on the 'Climate and Forecast Standard Names' link followed by the 'View status of current work' link. Please note that the vocabulary editor status pages are intended as an easy to view summary of standard names proposals and do not in any way replace the discussions on the mailing list.
The colour coded backgrounds of names on the 'current' status page should be interpreted as follows:
Blue - new proposal
Brown - name under discussion
Amber - name accepted but not yet published in standard name table
Green - name accepted and submitted for publication in NERC vocab server and standard name table on CF website.
The colour codes on the 'completed work' status page should be interpreted as follows:
Green - name published in NERC vocab server and standard name table on CF website
Red - name rejected (the comments field will record the reason for the proposal having been rejected).
I will post again tomorrow when the published table has been updated.
Best wishes,
Alison
>
> 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
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Email: alison.pamment at stfc.ac.uk
R25, 2.22
Harwell Oxford, Didcot, OX11 0QX, U.K.
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Received on Wed Mar 23 2011 - 08:16:48 GMT
