Dear All, On Tuesday 7th December I am planning an update of the standard name table in which I will be adding only a few of the changes that have been agreed in recent weeks. Apologies for not giving the usual seven days notice, but this 'mini' update is being done mainly for the purposes of testing a new piece of software. Details of the planned changes to the standard name table can be found at the end of this message. Should problems arise during the software test, the small number of changes means that they will be relatively easy to back out. Assuming all goes well, I will schedule another update of the table in the near future to add the rest of the agreed changes.
The software being tested is a new vocabulary editor that has been developed at CEDA (Centre for Environmental Data Archival) of which the British Atmospheric Data Centre forms a part. The development was started approximately two years ago by Calum Byrom of Tessella plc and over the last twelve months has been continued by Steve Donegan, a data scientist and developer at CEDA. The vocabulary editor will greatly simplify the task of maintaining the standard name table by reducing the amount of manual file editing needed and removing the need for some rather time consuming upload procedures. I will be able to send updates simultaneously to the CF website and the NERC Vocabulary Server which is looked after by Roy Lowry and his team at the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC). An important feature of the CEDA Vocabulary Editor is that keeps an audit trail of all vocabulary terms entered into it. This information will be displayed on web pages which will allow CF users to see at a glance which standard names are currently under discussion, along with their units and definitions. Names will be proposed and discussed on the CF mailing list as now. When a new name is proposed I will create an appropriate entry in the Vocabulary Editor and the name will appear on the 'current work' web page. To view the page, go to http://ndg.nerc.ac.uk/vocab-term-editor/home, click on the 'Climate and Forecast Standard Names' link and then click on the 'View status of current work' link. At the time of writing, the page is empty but I will shortly begin adding entries for the names that will be added to the table on Tuesday. Once the editor is fully operational, I will periodically update the entry for each name as its discussion proceeds on the mailing list. The web page will show an audit trail of how a name has evolved, e.g. changes in its wording or its definition. There will be a link to the relevant thread on the mailing list so that users can easily access the original discussion without having to trawl through the entire mailing list contents. There will also be a space to record comments, such as the reason for a particular name being accepted or rejected for publication in the standard name table. Once a name has been accepted I will be able to publish it on the CF website and the NERC Vocabulary Server at the push of a button. A name that has finally been accepted or rejected will be moved from the 'current work' web page to a 'completed work' web page. To see this, go to http://ndg.nerc.ac.uk/vocab-term-editor/home, click on 'Climate and Forecast Standard Names' followed by 'View completed work'. The completed work page will have exactly the same format as the current work page but it will disallow any further edits to the names. Its purpose is to act as a 'quick look' archive of standard names discussions. The current and completed work pages are readable by all, but access to the editing functionality is through password protected accounts that will only be provided to those responsible for maintaining the standard name table and the editor software. CF standard names is the first vocabulary to be added to the new editor but it is planned that other vocabularies will be added in due course to allow CEDA staff to manage a number of lists maintained in the NERC vocabulary server. Assuming that Tuesday's test is successful, I will then create entries for all open standard names discussions in the Vocabulary Editor. I will also post a more detailed explanation of the content of the current and completed work pages. Best wishes, Alison ------ Changes to the standard name table planned for Tuesday 7th December 2010 1. Aliases for existing standard names a. Atmosphere mass content names. Change proposed by Alison Pamment in response to query raised by Tim Nightingale. atmosphere_cloud_condensed_water_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_condensed_water atmosphere_cloud_ice_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_ice atmosphere_cloud_liquid_water_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_cloud_liquid_water atmosphere_convective_cloud_condensed_water_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_convective_cloud_condensed_water atmosphere_convective_cloud_liquid_water_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_convective_cloud_liquid_water atmosphere_water_vapor_content -> atmosphere_mass_content_of_water_vapor 2. Clarifications to the explanations of existing names a. area_fraction. Change proposed by Alison Pamment. The explanation of area_fraction will be changed to refer to area_type as the correct standard name for a variable describing the surface type whose fraction is being calculated. Currently the explanation refers to land_surface and land_cover which are aliases of area_type. 3. New names a. Liquid water concentration in air and aerosol size names. Proposed by Bruno Piguet. mass_concentration_of_cloud_liquid_water_in_air; kg m-3 mass_concentration_of_drizzle_in_air; kg m-3 mass_concentration_of_rain_in_air; kg m-3 mass_concentration_of_liquid_water_in_air; kg m-3 b. Extinction coefficient name for CMIP5. Proposed by Michael Shulz and Olivier Boucher. volume_extinction_coefficient_in_air_due_to_ambient_aerosol; m-1 c. Diffuse radiation name for CMIP5. Proposed by Karl Taylor. surface_diffuse_downwelling_shortwave_flux_in_air_assuming_clear_sky; Wm-2 ------ Alison Pamment Tel: +44 1235 778065 NCAS/British Atmospheric Data Centre Fax: +44 1235 446314 Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Email: [email protected] Chilton, Didcot, OX11 0QX, U.K. -- Scanned by iCritical. _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
