[CF-metadata] Proposal for standard name "snow_cover_binary_mask"

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 18:34:08 +0100

Dear Jim

> I'd like to propose the new standard name "snow_cover_binary_mask". There is a NOAA snow coverage extent product that is being put into netCDF format. The product is derived from the IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Analysis. It is a grid in which cells are marked as snow-covered or not snow-covered. The GCMD already has the keywords "Cryosphere > Snow/Ice > Snow Cover" and "Terrestrial Hydrosphere > Snow/Ice > Snow Cover", which are applied to the source product.

This idea seems fine to me. However, existing names for snow cover refer to
it as surface_snow, so I would suggest surface_snow_binary_mask instead.

> In this particular product, grid cells are marked as snow-covered when > 42% of the cell indicates the presence of snow.

For generality and to make the data self-describing, I would suggest that the
definition of snow_cover_binary_mask should require that the data variable has
coordinate variable or a scalar coordinate variable of
surface_snow_area_fraction (42% in your case) to specify the threshold. That
is an existing standard_name.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Wed Sep 05 2012 - 11:34:08 BST