[CF-metadata] additional standard name for ISMIP6

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2017 14:28:04 +0000

Dear Alison

> Jonathan replied:
> > Are you sure we can't call it area? It seems to me it's fine to call it that
> > if the coordinates indicate it refers to the whole world (regarded as one
> > grid cell) or to some large region (containing an entire ice sheet).
>
> I certainly agree that it seems more natural to call it grounded_ice_sheet_area. The definitions of the four existing "X_area" names say '"X_area" means the horizontal area occupied by X within the grid cell'. When I made my previous comments I was thinking about summing areas across multiple grid cells each of which contains a part of the ice sheet, but actually if the 'grid cell' in this case covers the entire area of the ice then it's not a problem. Perhaps the definition should be modified to emphasize that a bit more. Maybe something like:
> ' "X_area" means the horizontal area occupied by X within the grid cell. The extent of an individual grid cell is defined by the horizontal coordinates and any associated coordinate bounds or by a string valued auxiliary coordinate variable with a standard name of "region".' Does that sound OK?

Yes, I think that would be fine for this and other area-integral quantities
like it. It seems fine to allow "grid cell" to mean any region which can be
defined by horizontal coord bounds.

> You're right, it should be floating_ice_shelf_area_fraction to be consistent with the new area type of floating_ice_shelf that we have just introduced for ISMIP6. I think the terminology changed part way through the conversation and I neglected to update the standard name. I will create an alias (floating_ice_sheet_area_fraction -> floating_ice_shelf_area_fraction) and modify the definition accordingly. This will be included in the next update of standard names, planned for 21st February.

Thanks very much

Jonathan
Received on Thu Feb 09 2017 - 07:28:04 GMT