Dear Max,
I am planning to update the CF standard name table on Tuesday next
week and if possible I’d like to include your GHG names. Please could
you look through the names and definitions as they currently stand and
let me know if they are OK (preferably also copied to the CF mailing
list)? If you would prefer some further discussion of the names that
is also fine – it may still be possible to include them in the update
if the changes to the current position are only minor.
Best wishes,
Alison Pamment
------
Alison Pamment Tel: +44 1235 778065
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis Email:
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
R25, 2.22
Harwell Campus, Didcot, OX11 0QX, U.K.
*From:*CF-metadata [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *[email protected]
*Sent:* 21 January 2016 14:04
*To:* [email protected]; [email protected]
*Cc:* [email protected]; Bennett, Victoria (STFC,RAL,RALSP);
[email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [CF-metadata] New standard names for ESA GHG CCI quantities
Dear Max,
Thank you for your explanation of how the quantity is calculated. Now
I understand it better, I think the best approach is **not** to
include the cell_methods attribute, which describes statistical
processing along a particular axis of your data variable, and instead
use the standard name definition to explain how the quantity is
obtained. Your explanation describes what I would intuitively expect
a column mole fraction to mean, so combining this with the definitions
of other CF “standard phrases” I suggest the following:
dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane (canonical units: 1)
‘Mole fraction is used in the construction "mole_fraction_of_X_in_Y",
where X is a material constituent of Y. A chemical species denoted by
X may be described by a single term such as "nitrogen" or a phrase
such as "nox_expressed_as_nitrogen". The construction
"dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction" means that the quantity refers to the
whole atmospheric column and is calculated as the total number of
particles of X in the column divided by the number of dry air
particles in the same column, i.e. the effect of water vapor is
excluded. For localized values within the atmospheric medium, standard
names including "in_air" are used. Methane is a member of the group of
hydrocarbons known as alkanes. There are standard names for the alkane
group as well as for some of the individual species. The chemical
formula for methane is CH4.’
dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide (canonical units: 1)
‘Mole fraction is used in the construction "mole_fraction_of_X_in_Y",
where X is a material constituent of Y. A chemical species denoted by
X may be described by a single term such as "nitrogen" or a phrase
such as "nox_expressed_as_nitrogen". The construction
"dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction" means that the quantity refers to the
whole atmospheric column and is calculated as the total number of
particles of X in the column divided by the number of dry air
particles in the same column, i.e. the effect of water vapor is
excluded. For localized values within the atmospheric medium, standard
names including "in_air" are used. The chemical formula for carbon
dioxide is CO2.’
Are these OK?
Best wishes,
Alison
*From:*Dr. Maximilian Reuter [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* 20 January 2016 15:04
*To:* Pamment, Alison (STFC,RAL,RALSP); [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>; Bennett,
Victoria (STFC,RAL,RALSP)
*Subject:* Re: [CF-metadata] New standard names for ESA GHG CCI quantities
Hi Alison,
"atmosphere": I wasn't aware that "atmosphere" usually refers to the
whole column in the "CF-world".
cell_method: I don't know what kind of cell methods are allowed.
"pressure: mean" comes close but is not exactly the calculated
quantity because pressure is only approximately proportional to the
number of dry particles. XCO2 is the sum over all CO2 particles in the
atmospheric column divided by the number of dry air particles in the
same column.
"dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide/methane": Perfect!
Cheers Max
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. Maximilian Reuter
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP)
University of Bremen, FB1
Otto-Hahn-Allee 1
D-28334 Bremen
Germany
Phone: +49 (421) 218 62085
FAX: +49 (421) 218 62070
E-Mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/~mreuter
<http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/%7Emreuter>
____________________________________________________________________
Am 20.01.2016 um 15:16 schrieb [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>:
Dear Max,
Thank you for your comments. (This reply is also being posted to
the CF mailing list so that all subscribers can follow the
discussion and contribute).
In CF, different standard names often do sound quite similar as a
direct result of our efforts to standardize the use of individual
terms and phrases. However, all the terms are carefully defined
and full explanations accompany (almost) every entry in the
standard name table. We have many existing “atmosphere” and
“in_air” names and the distinction between these is precisely that
“atmosphere” applies to the whole column, or in some cases the
entire atmosphere, whereas “in_air” applies to a local value
within the medium. We make a similar distinction in oceanographic
names by using “ocean” for column names and “in_sea_water” for
local values. Hence, I think it is appropriate to use “atmosphere”
for your proposed names. I agree with Jonathan’s advice to also
attach a cell_methods attribute to your data variable, e.g.,
cell_methods = “height: mean” or cell_methods = “pressure: mean”
depending on your choice of vertical coordinate. This would avoid
any confusion about how the quantity was calculated.
Clearly you do have a requirement to distinguish between ambient
and dry air, so certainly the name should reflect this. Hence I
still favour my suggestions of:
dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane and
dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide. The addition of
“dry” at the beginning of each name would, as you pointed out,
help to further distinguish from the existing “in_air” names.
Would this be an acceptable compromise?
Best wishes,
Alison
*From:*Dr. Maximilian Reuter [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* 20 January 2016 13:25
*To:* Pamment, Alison (STFC,RAL,RALSP); [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>; Bennett,
Victoria (STFC,RAL,RALSP)
*Subject:* Re: [CF-metadata] New standard names for ESA GHG CCI
quantities
Hi Alison et al.,
thanks for coming back to the XCO2 and XCH4 CF standard names. As
mentioned in an earlier mail (18.11.2015), I think
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_dry_air could be
mixed up with the already existing name
"mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_air". In contrast to
mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_air, XCO2 is a column average.
At least for me, "atmosphere" would not automatically imply that a
column average is meant.
Additionally, it makes a difference if the mole fraction is
relative to dry or wet air. The difference is small but in terms
of required accuracy for XCO2 and XCH4, the difference is
important and was subject to many discussions in the past (see
also TCCON
<https://tccon-wiki.caltech.edu/Network_Policy/Data_Use_Policy/Auxiliary_Data>).
Therefore, I thinks it is important to specify in the standard
name that XCO2 (and XCH4) are column averages and that they are
dry_air mole fractions.
What about
"column_average_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_dry_air"? On
the one hand, this would be consistent with the naming convention
of "mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_air" and on the other hand
it would clearly specify the difference to
"mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_air.
Anyway, I'm happy with any name we can get :)
Cheers Max
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. Maximilian Reuter
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP)
University of Bremen, FB1
Otto-Hahn-Allee 1
D-28334 Bremen
Germany
Phone: +49 (421) 218 62085
FAX: +49 (421) 218 62070
E-Mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/~mreuter
<http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/%7Emreuter>
____________________________________________________________________
Am 20.01.2016 um 13:22 schrieb [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>:
Dear Jonathan,
I agree that we don't usually combine "atmosphere" and "in_air" in the
same name. My reason for doing it in this case was because the original proposal specified two
conditions:
1) dry air;
2) column average quantity (therefore not local).
I needed to find some way of including both in the name. However, it may be that we don't
need the "dry" bit at all, in which case we could just go with
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane and atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide, and there is
no problem. If it really is important that we specify "dry" for these quantities, perhaps
a better solution would be to put it at the start of the name, thus,
dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane and dry_atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide. Does
that look better?
Best wishes,
Alison
-----Original Message-----
From: CF-metadata [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf
Of Jonathan Gregory
Sent: 19 January 2016 16:55
To:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [CF-metadata] New standard names for ESA GHG CCI quantities
Dear Alison
In existing names we generally use "atmosphere" to indicate a
property of
the
atmosphere as a whole (or a large portion of it) and "in_air" to
indicate a
local property within the atmosphere. We don't use both phrases at
once.
These
quantities can be regarded as means of local properties, I think,
so just
in_air would be sufficient. If no vertical coordinate is specified,
it should
apply to the entire atmosphere, but to make that clear a
cell_method could
be
added to record that it's a vertical mean.
Best wishes
Jonathan
----- Forwarded message [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> -----
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2016 16:39:38 +0000
From:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
To:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
CC:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>,[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>,
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>,
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [CF-metadata] New standard names for ESA GHG CCI
quantities
Dear All,
I have been asked to re-propose two standard names that were
originally
proposed by Maximilian Reuter in 2014 but which did not receive any
comments at the time:http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-
metadata/2014/057373.html.
I have rephrased the original proposal to make the names more
CF like
and have added some standard definition text, so the names are now
proposed as follows:
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane_in_dry_air (canonical
units: 1)
'Mole fraction is used in the construction
"mole_fraction_of_X_in_Y",
where X is a material constituent of Y. A chemical species denoted
by X may
be described by a single term such as "nitrogen" or a phrase such as
"nox_expressed_as_nitrogen". The "atmosphere mole fraction" of a
quantity refers to the column average from the surface to the top
of the
atmosphere. Methane is a member of the group of hydrocarbons known
as
alkanes. There are standard names for the alkane group as well as
for some
of the individual species. The chemical formula for methane is CH4.'
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_dry_air (canonical
units: 1)
'Mole fraction is used in the construction
"mole_fraction_of_X_in_Y",
where X is a material constituent of Y. A chemical species denoted
by X may
be described by a single term such as "nitrogen" or a phrase such as
"nox_expressed_as_nitrogen". The "atmosphere mole fraction" of a
quantity refers to the column average from the surface to the top
of the
atmosphere. The chemical formula for carbon dioxide is CO2.'
These names reflect the original proposal, and generally follow
the syntax
of existing names such as mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide_in_air. I
have
prepended these names with the word "atmosphere" as a way of
indicating
a column amount, similar to existing atmosphere_mass_content names.
We don't currently have any "dry_air" names in CF. When this
topic last
came up on the mailing list (as far back as 2008 under the thread
entitled
"mixing ratio") it was concluded that the current "in_air" names
don't tie the
definition down to either dry or ambient air. The reason for this
(deliberate)
vagueness is that numerically the quantities in dry or moist air
are not very
different except in the case of water vapour itself where we define
humidity_mixing_ratio to mean " ratio of the mass of water vapor to
the
mass of dry air". The gist of the 2008 conversation was that if we
ever
needed to be very precise about making the distinction between
ambient
air and dry air then we would be able to introduce appropriate
names at a
later stage, but there wasn't a pressing need at the time. An
offline
conversation I had more recently with Jonathan Gregory and Martin
Schultz
went along similar lines, basically saying that we wouldn't change
any
existing names where the deliberate impre
ci
sion isn't important, but reiterating that we could introduce
new names if
there are cases where it does matter, specifying dry or ambient.
Please could Maximilan, Veronica or another member of the CCI
team
answer the question about whether there is a real need to specify
"dry_air"
in the case of these names, or can we get away with being a bit
more vague?
If vagueness is OK, then the names would simplify to
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_methane_in_dry_air and
atmosphere_mole_fraction_of_carbon_dioxide. Also, do others agree
with
my using "atmosphere" here to indicate the column average? All
comments
are welcome.
Best wishes,
Alison
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