Dear Jonathan,

I hadn't spotted the existing usage of frozen_water. My only reservation is 
that for such names the help text says '"frozen_water" means ice', which would 
exclude snow. The existing usages of "frozen_water" are all soil quantities for 
which the subtlety of the distinction between ice and snow is irrelevant. We 
could modify the help text for atmospheric variables, but is the term "frozen" 
appropriate for all solid phase water in the atmosphere?  Freezing is a process 
of transforming to solid phase through a reduction in temperature, which might 
be considered inappropriate for some atmospheric ice and snow formation 
pathways ... I'm not sure about this, what do you think?


regards,

Martin


________________________________
From: CF-metadata <cf-metadata-boun...@cgd.ucar.edu> on behalf of Jonathan 
Gregory <j.m.greg...@reading.ac.uk>
Sent: 05 April 2018 18:18
To: cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu
Subject: [CF-metadata] CMIP6 data request: Precipitation of solid phase water

Dear Martin

I agree with the need, but I note that the guidelines propose the phrase
frozen_water for solid water, and this is already used in several standard
names.

Although "precipitation" is used in the world at large for species other than
water, so far in CF standard names it's used only for water. Hence we can omit
"water" for consistency.

In view of these two points, would frozen_precipitation_flux be OK?

Best wishes

Jonathan

----- Forwarded message from Martin Juckes - UKRI STFC 
<martin.juc...@stfc.ac.uk> -----

> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 11:46:50 +0000
> From: Martin Juckes - UKRI STFC <martin.juc...@stfc.ac.uk>
> To: "cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu" <cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu>
> Subject: [CF-metadata] CMIP6 data request: Precipitation of solid phase water
>
> Dear All,
>
>
> The CMIP6 data request includes a request for a variable representing the 
> precipitation flux of water in a solid phase (including snow and ice). This 
> variable was also in CMIP5. The current CMIP6 data request follows CMIP5 
> usage in adopting the standard name "snowfall_flux" for this variable, which 
> is not really correct. There may have been a time when all solid 
> precipitation in CMIP models was snow, but I think we need a more precise 
> name now.
>
>
> We have "rainfall_flux" for precipitation of liquid phase water, but in other 
> terms the construction "liquid_water" is used to refer to the liquid phase, 
> e.g. "mass_concentration_of_liquid_water_in_air", so "solid_water" is a 
> natural extension.
>
>
> I propose a new standard name for solid phase precipitation:
>
>
> precipitation_flux_of_solid_water [kg m-2 s-1]
>
> In accordance with common usage in geophysical disciplines, "flux" implies 
> per unit area, called "flux density" in physics. "solid_water" refers to all 
> forms of the solid phase of water.
>
>
> regards,
>
> Martin
> _______________________________________________
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> CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu
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----- End forwarded message -----
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