Dear all
Like Karl, I thought that many people would have opinions, but so far there
are none. Please express your views! Shall we rename flux quantities in units
of something per m2 to flux_density in all existing standard names? Here are
the kinds of flux [density] we name:
carbon energy evaporation graupel heat longwave mass melt mole momentum
photon precipitation radiative rainfall refreezing runoff salt shortwave
snowfall sublimation throughfall transpiration water_vapor water
With regard to your point, Karl, I think we would not use plain "flux" in the
area-integral sense. We would avoid using it altogether. We already have ways
of working round it e.g. northward heat transport in W and there is no need
to change those names.
Best wishes and thanks
Jonathan
----- Forwarded message from Karl Taylor <taylor13 at llnl.gov-----
Date: Thu, 14 May 2015 10:47:55 -0700
From: Karl Taylor <taylor13 at llnl.gov>
To: cf-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] flux
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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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Received on Tue May 19 2015 - 15:23:51 BST
