Dear Gary
The land/sea classification originated in models, which don't resolve small
bodies of water, and "sea" means anything which is not "land" in the area
type table. There have been previous discussions about whether we could replace
"sea" in standard names with something either more inclusive or more precise.
These discussions haven't so far reached a conclusion. In the area_type table,
I can't see a problem with providing more precise terms, such as ocean, as well
as "sea", if there is need. Do you have different algorithms for sea which is
not ocean? If not, is the distinction of ocean really essential?
Best wishes
Jonathan
----- Forwarded message from Gary Meehan <gmeehan at aer.com> -----
> Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2013 07:24:06 -0500
> From: Gary Meehan <gmeehan at aer.com>
> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130328
> Thunderbird/17.0.5
> To: cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
> Subject: [CF-metadata] Suggested Addition of 'Ocean' to Area Type Table
>
> Dear CF board,
>
> We have an algorithm for aerosol optical depth which yields
> statistics over oceans, strictly.
> The area_type_table does include 'sea' in its list. Is this meant to
> be strictly synonymous with
> 'ocean,' or is it more inclusive, e.g., large lakes. If 'sea' is
> indeed meant to be a rather
> inclusive term, we would like to propose the addition of 'ocean' to
> the table to give a more
> precise context to our application.
>
> It may also be worthwhile to provide a definition for 'sea,' if it
> is indeed intended to be more encompassing
> that 'ocean.'
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Gary
>
> --
> Gary Meehan
> Senior Staff Scientist
> Atmospheric and Environmental Research
> 131 Hartwell Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421-3126
> Tel (781) 761-2228 ? Fax (781) 761-2299
> e-mail: gmeehan at aer.com
>
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----- End forwarded message -----
Received on Fri Dec 20 2013 - 08:07:02 GMT
