Hi John,
I have seen similar situations in atmospheric chemistry. I participated in an
intercomparison in which we submitted exactly what the std_name required, only
to find out that every other group had submitted what they assumed it meant,
which was several orders of magnitude different.
I think the bar for retroactively changing a definition should be very high
(without commenting on the merits of your case). One thing we can do to help,
without causing any problems, is to add to existing descriptions a list of
related std_names so that a user will get a 'heads up' to look at other
std_names. I know this is only a partial solution, but better than nothing.
Best wishes,
Philip
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Philip Cameron-Smith, [email protected], Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Graybeal [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 3:48 PM
To: Cameron-smith, Philip
Cc: Lowry, Roy K.; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] sea_water_pressure
It looks sensible to me, too, but I have to ask a stupid question. Of all the
data with "sea_water_pressure" CF standard names in the world, how many are
actually presenting what CF defines that to be? (If the answer is "very few",
maybe the answer is that the definition is just mis-stated for what the
community expected, and we need a new term to go with the existing definition.)
(Yes, this is a perspective that only an ontologist could offer without
embarrassment.)
John
On Jan 10, 2013, at 15:16, Cameron-smith, Philip wrote:
Hi Roy,
This looks sensible to me.
Philip
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Philip Cameron-Smith, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>, Lawrence
Livermore National Lab.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: CF-metadata [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lowry,
Roy K.
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:01 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [CF-metadata] sea_water_pressure
Dear All,
It has been pointed out to me that the SeaDataNet NetCDF specification uses
'sea_water_pressure' as the Standard Name in cases where pressure is used as
the z co-ordinate in observational data such as CTD profiles. The definition
for this Standard Name is:
the pressure that exists in the medium of sea water. It includes the pressure
due to overlying sea water, sea ice, air and any other medium that may be
present.
Consequently the expected pressure z co-ordinate labelled 'sea_water_pressure'
would be approximately 10 decibars at the sea surface. However, it is almost
universal practice to either calibrate or correct the pressure z co-ordinate so
that it reads zero at the sea surface. Consequently, I think we need a new
Standard Name:
sea_water_pressure_due_to_sea_water defined as
the pressure that exists in the medium of sea water due to overlying sea water.
Excludes the pressure due to sea ice, air and any other medium that may be
present.
Apologies to anybody else who like me had used 'sea_water_pressure' for their Z
co-ordinate without looking at the definition.
Cheers, Roy.
Please note that I now work part-time from Tuesday to Thursday. E-mail
response on other days is possible but not guaranteed!
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Ocean Observatories Initiative Cyberinfrastructure Project:
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Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org
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