[CF-metadata] Duplicate vocabulary attenuation/extinction and backscatterin/backwards_scattering.

From: Cameron-smith, Philip <cameronsmith1>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 18:10:14 -0800

Hi All,

While working through recent std_name proposals for radiative transfer quantities, I encountered what appear to me to be duplicate vocabulary within the existing std_name list for a couple of terms:

1) _attentuation_ and _extinction_ appear to have the same physical meaning, although the comments note that attenuation is more commonly used for radar and extinction is more commonly used for visible light. The number of std_names using each of them is 2 and 1, respectively, so it should be easy to fix with aliases.

2) _backscattering_ and _backwards_scattering_ also appear to have the same definition. The number of std_names using each of them is 1 and 4, respectively, so it should be easy to fix with aliases. Although it is less common, I prefer _backscattering_ because it is a single word, and will generalize better to _forwardscattering_.

Am I missing an important distinction with either of these pairs?

Best wishes,

     Philip


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Dr Philip Cameron-Smith, pjc at llnl.gov, Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
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Received on Fri Mar 09 2012 - 19:10:14 GMT