[CF-metadata] new TEOS-10 standard names

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2011 14:08:47 +0100

Dear all

For various reasons which people have mentioned, I don't think we can make
"salinity" an alias for "practical salinity". We cannot be certain what is
meant in all existing datasets. This is a potentially a physical change.

Certainly we can and should deprecate "salinity" in its definition, however,
for observational datasets. I don't know whether this is necessarily the case
for model datasets. Trevor and I had an exchange of emails a while ago
discussing the use of non-real-world equations of state. In some cases I don't
think it would be justifiable to use the term "practical salinity". That
implies more realism than the model has in the case, for instance, where I
am using a linear equation of state. Hence I think plain "salinity" should be
retained in the standard_name table as a term in its own right, but with the
caveat indicating that more precise terms should be used whenever possible
and applicable.

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Thu Oct 06 2011 - 07:08:47 BST