Dear Jonathan,
My oh my, this is bound to generate lots of opinions. I do recall the
original discussion conclusion that although "flux density" was the
proper name, we'd be lax in this case and go with common usage, "flux".
An argument against the common usage is that if we want to define the
flux density integrated over some surface, then we couldn't call it
"flux", which is what it is. Perhaps to distinguish this from "flux" (W
m-2), we would call this "integrated_flux" (W). Do we have examples of
having to do this kind of thing in the current standard names?
Even if we rename "flux" "flux density", we probably wouldn't want to
refer to the integrated flux as simply "flux" because so many fields
have already been written named "flux" when "flux density" was meant.
It's not going to be easy.
Karl
On 5/14/15 9:37 AM, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> Dear all
>
> In connection with the radiative flux from the sun, the question has come up
> of whether we should use the phrase flux_density for a flux per unit area in
> all the standard names which currently have the word "flux". This would be
> correct in physical terminology, but years ago we chose to use "flux" because
> it's the normal terminology in many geosciences. There are more than 200
> standard names of "flux" - radiative fluxes, mass fluxes and mole fluxes. In
> some of them I don't think "flux density" is ever used e.g. I have never
> heard of an "ocean flux density adjustment", and Google finds one hit for
> "snowfall flux density". However we could rename them all and establish aliases
> to the present names, if that would be an advantage for users of standard
> names. Should this be done?
>
> Cheers
>
> Jonathan
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