Can we please resurrect the topic of a grammar for standard names, which
Jonathan and I have raised in the past? - see
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/2010/007093.html for
an entry point. This discussion illustrates as clearly as can be that
the time has come to really get to grips with this - ultimately there
really is no alternative. If this forum is not the right place to
develop this in detail, then I'm very happy to be contacted off-list.
Cheers,
Robert
On 01/03/11 21:07, Seth McGinnis wrote:
I'm in favor of a generalized system for automatically constructing new
standard names by applying quantifiers to established ones. In fact, when I
first encountered the Guidelines for Construction of CF Standard Names, I
thought that's what it *was*, and it took me a while to understand that you
still had to actually propose the standard name and have it accepted.
Obviously there are potential complications if chaining together multiple
quantifiers is allowed, but for simple derived names, I think it sounds like a
great idea.
Case in point: I've been meaning to propose two new standard names myself, and
hadn't gotten around to writing the email about it yet:
histogram_of_spell_length_of_days_with_lwe_thickness_of_precipitation_amount_above_threshold
histogram_of_spell_length_of_days_with_lwe_thickness_of_precipitation_amount_below_threshold
(I've simply applied the "histogram_of" modifier to two existing names here, so
that we can record the climatological distributions of wet and dry spells.)
This seems like exactly the kind of thing that could be automated away with
some general rules, no? Or is my proposal more controversial than I think it
is?
Cheers,
--Seth
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:15:13 +0000
Jonathan Gregory<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Martin
Even 24 such cases wouldn't be really a problem. However, I don't feel
strongly
about this myself. This is not quite the original use of standard_name
modifiers, which is to describe variables containing ancillary quantities.
However, it seems to be a reasonable use of the mechanism, since it's a
derived quantity. (A combination of quantities would be more difficult to
deal with, as we have discussed.) I feel that opinions from others on whether
we should make this change would be helpful.
Best wishes
Jonathan
On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 09:14:18AM +0100, Schultz, Martin wrote:
maybe I am fighting a lost battle here, but let me try to argue once
more for a generalized solution, i.e. the addition of "anomaly" as a standard
name modifier. I don't like the idea of adding a new standard name for each
new anomaly: i) this seems illogical and new users will ask "why is there an
anomaly defined for temperature, but nor for precipitation?", ii) past
experience has shown that it takes time to get new standard names adopted, and
if new use cases come up (as they are bound to be for something as essential
as anomalies) it may discourage people to even go for standard names for these
variables. Why not try to make the system as systematic as possible? I don't
want to argue against a pragmatic approach, but if you decide to change the
anomalies from individual standard names to a modifier in three years, the
effort might be much larger, the confusion will be greater and other
"operators" with similar problems will come along. So, my suggestion would be
to
deprecate the use of air_pressure_anomaly, air_temperature_anomaly,
geopotential_height_anomaly and surface_temperature_anomaly now and introduce
"anomaly" as a modifier. It's only replacing an underescore by a blank anyhow
;-)
As we just developed some tools to compute multi-model means and model
anomalies for the TFHTAP data sets, I would otherwise have to come up with a
list of ~20 new "_anomaly" standard names. So, besides what I see a rational
argument (above), I have a personal reason for arguing so vehemently.
_______________________________________________
CF-metadata mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
_______________________________________________
CF-metadata mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
_______________________________________________
CF-metadata mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
