[CF-metadata] new TEOS-10 standard names

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:05:18 +0000

Dear Alison

This is great. Thanks for going through it so thoroughly.

> (b) sea_water_temperature
> There is agreement to retain the standard name sea_water_temperature as this is useful particularly for observations. It currently has no explanatory text. In response to the discussion I propose to add the following sentence: 'Sea temperature is the in situ (bulk) temperature of the sea water, not the surface or skin temperature.'

It is important for models too; although the prognostic is often potential
temperature, in-situ temperature is considered sometimes. Since this is a
very general term, maybe we can leave it vague (and thus sidestep the need
to define surfaces). It is the in-situ temperature of sea water. SST is a
species of sea_water_temperature. It is analogous to air_temperature.

> (d) Do we need to modify the explanations of all the existing salinity quantities?
> As I mentioned, there are twelve salinity names already in the standard name table.

I think these terms can remain vague too. In their vagueness, they are
parallel to sea_water_salinity, which we are retaining, though deprecating for
future obs quantities, and models where applicable. If salinity is generic,
these generic quantities can also be used for specific purposes. When it
becomes necessary to be specific about *which* salinity is meant by e.g.
  product_of_northward_sea_water_velocity_and_salinity
then a new specific standard name can be defined. We could modify the
definitions to say that they can be used with any definition of salinity
(but specific ones could be proposed if required to make distinctions).

> (b) sea_water_knudsen_salinity

Yes, I believe this should be in units of 1e-3.

> (c) sea_water_reference_salinity
> There has been a suggestion that this quantity should also be introduced as a standard name. No comments have so far been received on this proposal.

Please could you remind us of the context?

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Mon Nov 28 2011 - 07:05:18 GMT