Dear Charles Thank you for these proposals. Following Jim's question and your answer, I appreciate that you can't define a threshold value in a particular quantity for your application of these masks. Perhaps another question to ask is whether quantities with these standard names are supposed to be comparable across different datasets. That is the main purpose of standard names, in fact. For instance, cloud_binary_mask is quite a general-purpose-sounding name. You can imagine that, if this were in the table with the definition you give it:
> cloud_binary_mask: X_binary_mask has 1 where condition X is met, 0 > elsewhere. 1 = cloud present, 0 = cloud absent (clear) it might be used to label quantities with many different definitions of cloud cloud presence/absence. The use of a common standard name would indicate these quantities are the same, can be compared, and scientific conclusions can be drawn from the comparison. But that might misleading. Is this acceptable? If your intention is to define cloud presence/absence in a specific way, then I feel it would be better to have a more specific standard name that identifies the algorithm, on the analogy for instance of the existing standard name of isccp_cloud_area_fraction. I think it is fine to have application-specific standard names like that then they identify quantities which might be generated by different providers and which should be labelled as comparable. Best wishes Jonathan ----- Forwarded message from Charles Paxson <[email protected]> ----- > Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 15:34:02 -0400 > From: Charles Paxson <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: [CF-metadata] GOES-R generated binary mask products under proposal > User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.28) > Gecko/20120306 Thunderbird/3.1.20 > > Dear CF Metadata Users Group, > > Through observations and analysis, GOES-R weather products produce > binary masks for: aerosols, smoke, dust and clouds. No coordinate > value is warranted (i.e. CF Metadata standard > surface_snow_binary_mask) for any of these four proposed quantities, > since a complex set of tests for each case, such as using brightness > temperatures, are used to derive signatures of the four atmospheric > constituents. The proposed masks are analogous and defined in a > similar way as the CF Metadata standard names: land_binary_mask and > sunlit_binary_mask. > > aerosol_binary_mask: X_binary_mask has 1 where condition X is met, 0 > elsewhere. 1 = aerosols present, 0 = aerosolsabsent > smoke_binary_mask: X_binary_mask has 1 where condition X is met, 0 > elsewhere. 1 = smoke present, 0 = smoke absent > dust_binary_mask: X_binary_mask has 1 where condition X is met, 0 > elsewhere. 1 = dust present, 0 = dust absent > cloud_binary_mask: X_binary_mask has 1 where condition X is met, 0 > elsewhere. 1 = cloud present, 0 = cloud absent (clear) > > Please accept these four mask names for inclusion into the CF > Metadata standard. > > Sincerely, > > Charles Paxson > > > _______________________________________________ > CF-metadata mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
