[CF-metadata] Standard_name proposal for volcanic ash and radioactive particles

From: alison.pamment at stfc.ac.uk <alison.pamment>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:02:34 +0000

Dear Heiko et al,

Many thanks for your proposals for volcanic and isotope names and for all the comments in the discussion. I think the patterns of the names that have been agreed look fine, also the mixed case naming convention for the isotopes.

> mass_concentration_of_volcanic_ash_in_air
>canonical units: g/m^3
> description: Mass concentration means mass per unit volume and is used in the construction mass_concentration_of_X_in_Y, where X is a material constituent
> of Y. "Volcanic_ash" means the fine-grained products of explosive volcanic eruptions, such as minerals or crystals, older fragmented rock (e.g. andesite), and
> glass. Particles within a volcanic ash cloud have diameters less than 2 mm.
> "Volcanic_ash" does not include non-volcanic dust.
>
I suggest the canonical units should be kg m-3 as for other mass_concentration names. It would still be fine to use g m-3 in your files. Okay?

>
> Radioactivity (without naming the isotopes, general case):
>
> radioactivity_concentration_in_air
> Bq/m3
> Radioactivity concentration means activity per unit volume where activity denotes the number of decays of the material per second.
>
This looks fine. I suggest a minor tweak to separate the sentences defining 'radioactivity' and 'radioactivity_concentration' (this makes them easier to reuse in other definitions):
' "Radioactivity" means the number of radioactive decays of a material per second. "Radioactivity concentration" means radioactivity per unit volume of the medium.'
Okay?

> surface_radioactivity_content
> Bq/m2
> "surface" means the lower boundary of the atmosphere. "Content"
> indicates a quantity per unit area. Radioactivity of X means the number of radioactive decays per second.
>
This looks fine. I suggest minor changes to the definition:
'The surface called "surface" means the lower boundary of the atmosphere. "Content" indicates a quantity per unit area. "Radioactivity" means the number of radioactive decays of a material per second.'
Okay?

> integral_wrt_time_of_radioactivity_concentration_in_air
> Bq*s/m3
> The phrase "integral_wrt_X_of_Y" means int Y dX. The data variable should have an axis for X specifying the limits of the integral as bounds. "wrt" means with
> respect to. Radioactivity concentration means activity per unit volume where activity denotes the number of decays per second.
>
This looks fine. I suggest minor changes to the definition:
'The phrase "integral_wrt_X_of_Y" means int Y dX. The data variable should have an axis for X specifying the limits of the integral as bounds. The phrase "wrt" means "with respect to". "Radioactivity" means the number of radioactive decays of a material per second. "Radioactivity concentration" means radioactivity per unit volume of the medium.'
Okay?

> When naming the isotope, the names are:
> radioactivity_concentration_of_X_in_air
> surface_radioactivity_content_of_X
> integral_wrt_time_of_radioactivity_concentration_of_X_in_air
> with X denoting the isotope as 210mPo.
>

On a general point, the discussion raised the question of whether we should allow mixed case standard names. Certainly the conventions only say that they are case sensitive and we do in fact have one existing standard name that includes an upper case character, photolysis_rate_of_ozone_to_1D_oxygen_atom, so we have a precedent for doing this. I'm not aware of any problems caused by the existing name, and particularly in view of the current proposals I think the standard name guidelines document should be amended - I'm happy to come up with an alternative wording.

On 17th January Heiko provided a list of 1086 isotope standard names. There then followed some discussion regarding how many names are needed for immediate use. Just to clarify, Heiko, are you still proposing all the names in your original list? I don't foresee any major technical problems with handling this number of names - it should be possible to do a bulk upload to create the individual entries in my vocabulary editor.

Best wishes,
Alison
Received on Wed Jan 31 2018 - 08:02:34 GMT