[CF-metadata] standard name for sea water ph without

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 18:29:22 +0000

Dear Upendra

> Coming to the problem of coming up with a standard name for pH
> accurately, I can see the issue here. Though I am still not sure why
> not all five standard names were included. If there is an analogy
> between sea water pH and sea water temperature, as mentioned in one
> of the emails, why not have sea_water_pH just as we have
> sea_water_temperature?

I think the reason not all five were added is that only one of them was
requested at the time. I believe that was the right decision, because it's
generally only when we have a real use-case that the expertise is at hand
i.e. the proposer to explain what is required.

My understand was that, unlike for sea water temperature, sea water pH
would not be meaningful without the scale specified. That is, it's not a
matter of technique, but a matter of definition. A better analogy would be
that sea_water_temperature and sea_water_salinity are distinct quantities
that can't both be described by a generic standard name.

I can imagine that if a model had pH, it might possibly need a generic sort,
because it might not represent the chemistry properly. However, that hasn't
been proposed.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Fri Dec 09 2011 - 11:29:22 GMT