Hi Philip, I like that idea. I've always tried to label data such that future users can judge the applicability of that data to their requirements. pH on an unknown scale might be useless to a deep-ocean carbonate chemist, but works for some datasets I have from the Humber where pH ranges from 4 (locally near certain industrial outlets) to almost 8 and the biologists want to know if the water will support certain kinds of life.
I also noticed in this thread the wish to search for related parameters. Those interested in this might like to know that I maintain a mapping between the Standard Names and a SeaDataNet discovery vocabulary (http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02). See for example http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02/current/ALKY/ to see how various Standard Names related to carbonate chemistry can be found (the Standard Names are the URLs including the reference P07). Cheers, Roy. P.S. the observant might notice a syntactic change in the above URLs from others I have posted to the list in the past. This is due to the release of a new version (2.0) of the NERC Vocabulary Server. ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Cameron-smith, Philip [[email protected]] Sent: 10 December 2011 09:09 To: John Graybeal; Jonathan Gregory Cc: [email protected]; Upendra Dadi Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] standard name for sea water ph without Hi All, Would it work to include an 'unknown' scale? Best wishes, Philip ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Philip Cameron-Smith, [email protected], Lawrence Livermore National Lab. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:cf-metadata- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of John Graybeal > Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 4:34 PM > To: Jonathan Gregory > Cc: [email protected]; Upendra Dadi > Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] standard name for sea water ph without > > > On Dec 9, 2011, at 10:29, Jonathan Gregory wrote: > > >> Though I am still not sure why not all five standard names were > included. If there is an analogy between sea water pH and sea water > temperature, as mentioned in one of the emails, why not have > sea_water_pH just as we have sea_water_temperature? > > > > I think the reason not all five were added is that only one of them > was requested at the time. I believe that was the right decision, > because it's generally only when we have a real use-case that the > expertise is at hand i.e. the proposer to explain what is required. > > Ah, my previous comment was to the wrong point. Jonathan is correct in > the CF sense of things -- we requested all 5, but it was determined we > only really needed 1 of the 5 at that time. Consistent with the CF > philosophy, we elected not to cause ourselves trouble by "looking > ahead." (By the way, I like your idea of referencing the thread > somehow. Would be a nice contextual bit for those new to the > discussion.) > > On Dec 9, 2011, at 11:47, Upendra Dadi wrote: > > > But the semantic issues should not become operational bottlenecks. I > work at a data center where I do come across datasets where ambiguities > about what the data represents is not uncommon. Often, it is almost > impossible to resolve the ambiguities. If I have dataset which has an > accompanying document which says that the dataset represents sea water > pH without giving any scale, there should still be a way to encode this > information into the dataset. ... Of course, I can put this information > as part of long name or comment which is unstructured information, but > for "deep" semantic searches this is not an ideal solution. > > > I like this point. > > One of the clear strengths of the CF vocabulary is that it has strong, > conscientious community review, not to mention professional management, > and that all of that is devoted to creating crisp terminology. I like > your point here, and I could envision a subclass of names that are not > so strongly constrained. (Oddly, a good name for this concept eludes > me!) It would be nice to be able to search data, using standard names, > for a class of parameter -- e.g., 'anything measuring sea_water_ph'. > > This is enough of a variation on the current approach that it would > almost certain require a TRAC ticket proposal and some discussion > (because many of the generic terms would require different units under > different circumstances, which is very non-CFish). So, let's see if > there's interest.... > > John > > _______________________________________________ > 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-- This message (and any attachments) is for the recipient only. NERC is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the contents of this email and any reply you make may be disclosed by NERC unless it is exempt from release under the Act. Any material supplied to NERC may be stored in an electronic records management system. _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
