I forgot: Please find a detailed description of the problem -- including an explanatory plot -- here (login required):

https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/Entry.jsp?acronym=readme_seasalt


I forgot that the following standard name types are also affected:
 - tendency_of_atmosphere_mass_content_of_*_dry_aerosol_particles_due_to_...
 - mass_fraction_of_*_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air

Daniel


On 09.11.2017 15:52, Daniel Neumann wrote:
Dear List,

I would like to bring this treat back to attention to finalize it in the one or another way. Further below are three suggestions ((a) to (c)) on how to proceed.

There are standard name types:
 - atmospheric_mass_content_of_X_dry_aerosol
 - mass_concentration_of_X_dry_aerosol_in_air
 - atmosphere_mass_content_of_sulfate_dry_aerosol_particles_expressed_as_sulfur

They are used in (a few) CMIP5, in (a few) CMIP6, in my, and, probably, in a lot of other data files.

The current status of discussion is that they DO NOT describe the "... mass of X ..." but the "... the mass of all particles containing X ...". These are quite different meanings. In practice, these standard names are used with the first meaning (at least CMIP5, CMIP6, my data). In practice, the second meaning is not applicable. I am not aware of any data set that uses one of these standard names 'correctly'.

Thus, the current status of the discussion is that the standard names are generally wrongly used. What shall we do? Here are three options.

~~~~
The standard names do not 100% fit (if interpreted literally) to the variables to which they are applied.

(a) Nevertheless we keep them as they are to remain consistent and to avoid confusion. I volunteer to update the descriptions. (b) We rename all these standard names (maybe 100 by number, probably more). (c) We keep these standard names as they are (and enforce their literal meaning!) and create correct new standard names (maybe 100, probably more).
~~~~

I am in favor of (a). Least work. Does not interfere with current usage.

The solution (b) would me a lot of hand work (if Batch processing of CF-Standard Name list is not possible -- is it?). The solution (c) would be quite bad (in my opinion): A lot of data set would not be CF-compliant anymore because 'wrong' standard names were used.


Why do I insist on finalizing this discussion: I would like to propose two new standard names, which are affected by this discussion.


Cheers,
Daniel




On 13.07.2017 18:23, Daniel Neumann wrote:
Dear Markus, Dear List,

Thank you for your feedback.

> doesn't make much sense beyond archiving a model output field since it doesn't
> describe any quantity that could be readily observed. Also, the mass
> concentration of particles containing chemical X is somewhat ill-defined. You > will find some traces of X in almost all particles of an aerosol containing X -
> so where is the threshold for saying that a particle contains X?
I agree with you.

Thus, it might be reasonable to introduce a new standard name (I like the one you suggested. My idea for a name was more complicated :-) )

mass_concentration_of_X_in_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air

for (partly) secondary particulate species, namely nitrate, ammonium, mercury, chloride, particulate organic matter, secondary particulate organic matter and sulfate. For these species (except for chloride) there exists already a standard name like

mass_concentration_of_X_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air


I think (please correct me if I am wrong) that

mass_concentration_of_X_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air

was meant to describe the same. Maybe one could make an alias from it?


Regards,
Daniel



On 12.07.2017 14:32, Markus Fiebig wrote:
Dear Daniel,

thanks for posting this again, I missed your first posting during vacation.

Coming from the observation community, a name like

mass_concentration_of_X_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air

doesn't make much sense beyond archiving a model output field since it doesn't
describe any quantity that could be readily observed. Also, the mass
concentration of particles containing chemical X is somewhat ill-defined. You will find some traces of X in almost all particles of an aerosol containing X -
so where is the threshold for saying that a particle contains X?

To me, it would make much more sense to have names of the type

mass_concentration_of_X_in_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air

This type of name is less ambiguous to understand, and describes a property that
can in fact be observed.

Best regards,
Markus


Am 11.07.2017 um 21:05 schrieb Daniel Neumann:
Dear CF-Meta Mailinglist,

I would like to advertise my long question from two weeks ago. Maybe there were no replies because it was to long :-) . Excuse me if I should be wrong
with that assumption. The basic questions are:

What do these two standard names mean?
   (a) mass_concentration_of_ammonium_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air
   (b) mass_concentration_of_dry_aerosol_particles_expressed_as_ammonium_in_air

What should be the standard name for the mass concentration of atmospheric particulate chloride/ammonium/nitrate/sulfate/...? Should it be like (a), like (b) or something else (e.g. mass_concentrations_of_particulate_ammonium_in_air)?

Please find details on the question here:
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/2017/059573.html

Regards,
Daniel



On 27.06.2017 14:43, Daniel Neumann wrote:
Dear CF-Mailinglist,

in a recent proposal (link given below*), Alison and I discussed about the naming conventions for the mass of specific aerosol particle components. There seems to be clarification necessary in the descriptions and/or names.
[* recent proposal with discussion:
http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/2017/059522.html, look for "10. mass_concentration_of_chloride_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air (kg m-3)"]


Currently, there exist standard names like
mass_concentration_of_ammonium_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air
mass_concentration_of_dust_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air
general form: mass_concentration_of_X_dry_aerosol_particles_in_air
which describe mass concentration of aerosol particles that contain species X. Thus, this standard name describes not only the mass of species X but also the mass of other species that are associated with X on particles. In the past, I thought it would describe the mass of species X only. We think that there is a need for clarifying this in the description of these standard names.


When we now want to quantify the mass of particulate X only (e.g. mass of
particulate chloride, mass of particulate ammonium), we could use the
standard name
mass_concentration_of_dry_aerosol_particles_expressed_as_X_in_air
However, I see two problems with respect to this naming convention. First, we
get a not-nice name if we want to express the mass concentrations of
particulate ammonium in terms of nitrogen. We needed a standard name like mass_concentration_of_dry_aerosol_particles_expressed_as_ammonium_expressed_as_nitrogen_in_air
which contains 'expressed' twice.

Second (but that is my personal feeling only), I use the "X_expressed_as_Y" formulation only, when there is some relation from Y to X. Or in other words:
when Y is a reasonable measure for X.
...organic_matter_..._expressed_as_carbon...
...nox_expressed_as_nitrogen...
...phytoplankton_expressed_as_phosphorus...
Therefore,
"mass_concentration_of_dry_aerosol_particles_expressed_as_X_in_air" is not a good choice for a standard name describing the mass of particulate X in my
opinion.


An alternative would be to introduce a standard name like
mass_concentrations_of_particulate_X_in_air
mass_concentrations_of_particulate_ammonium_in_air
mass_concentrations_of_particulate_chloride_in_air

What is your opinion on this topic?


Best Regards,
Daniel

--
Dr. Markus Fiebig
Senior Scientist
Dept. Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS)
Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU)
P.O. Box 100
N-2027 Kjeller
Norway

Tel.: +47 6389-8235
Fax : +47 6389-8050
e-mail: [email protected]
skype: markus.fiebig

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Daniel Neumann

Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemuende
Physical Oceanography and Instrumentation
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