Hi Jonathan (Gregory),
Thank you for reminding me about the height issue. I would say that the height of met station screened boxes is close enough to the surface to allow comparison with the quantity calculated by other means, so I think the description is fine :-).
Best wishes,
Philip
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Dr Philip Cameron-Smith, pjc at llnl.gov, Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
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-----Original Message-----
From: CF-metadata [mailto:cf-metadata-bounces at cgd.ucar.edu] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gregory
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2013 2:29 AM
To: cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
Subject: [CF-metadata] atmosphere stability indices
Dear all
I chose a new subject because these threads about lifted_index, total_totals_ index and Seth's new standard names for CIN etc. are closely related.
I agree with the suggestion from Philip to include _from_the_surface on names referring to surface parcels (it was previously clarified that really means from the surface, not "surface air" i.e. screen height), and omit it when the parcel comes from a different level that is identified by a numeric coordinate.
That is consistent with the general pattern that special physical surfaces (such as the surface i.e. bottom of atmos) appear by name in standard_names when relevant, whereas levels specified by coordinates do not.
Excuse my making a late suggestion on another matter. I think "start" and "finish" are OK but they make it sound like a real trajectory, whereas these are just calculations from the state of the atmos. I would therefore like to suggest "source" (for "start"), which has the same sense of "where the parcel came from" that "origin" has, but doesn't have the potential confusion. E.g.
air_pressure_of_lifted_parcel_at_source. What do you think?
As for "finish", which names require this? I wonder about using "ambient" for "finish", in cases where the idea is to compare the parcel with the environment at the end of its notional journey. Again, what do you think?
Going back to Seth's proposal, I wonder if atmosphere_specific_convective_inhibition
atmosphere_specific_convective_available_potential_energy
are really best regarded as a trajectory. They are integral quantities. In those two cases, I suggest it would be fairly natural to give them bounds in a vertical coordinate to indicate the limits of integration.
Best wishes
Jonathan
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Received on Wed Jun 05 2013 - 03:16:22 BST
