Hello Jonathan,

good questions. The terrestrial water amount certainly includes ice, and I 
believe it includes ice sheets (see, e.g. 
https://www.aaas.org/news/changes-land-water-storage-and-melting-ice-sheets-drive-polar-motion
 ), but might exclude floating ice sheets.  Jean-Yves, can you comment on 
whether TWS should include floating ice shelves and/or ice sheets?


For lightning flashes, I agree: frequency_of_lightning_flashes_per_unit_area is 
better,


regards,

Martin


________________________________
From: CF-metadata <[email protected]> on behalf of Jonathan 
Gregory <[email protected]>
Sent: 02 May 2018 17:37
To: [email protected]
Subject: [CF-metadata] Fwd: PMIP: standard names for the CMIP6 data request: 
tws, lighning flashes, wetland emissions, etc

Dear Martin

> (1.1) mrtws Terrestrial Water Storage [kg m-2]
>
> land_based_water_amount
>
> “This quantity is often known as Terrestrial Water Storage.. It includes 
> surface water (water in rivers, wetlands, lakes, snow, vegetation and 
> reservoirs) and subsurface water (soil moisture, groundwater)”

That's good, but I think that land_water_amount would be better. The phrase
"land water(s)" is sometimes used for terrestrial water storage, and it is
analogous to land_ice. However, that raises the question of whether land_ice
is specifically excluded from this quantity. I think it might be, and if so,
should it be land_liquid_water? Is permafrost also included? - if so, we will
have to be even more precise in order to include frozen water in soil and snow
but exclude glaciers and ice sheets!

> (1.2) Flashrate Lightning flash rate [km-2 s-1]
>
> frequency_of_lightning_flash_per_unit_area

I suppose that "flashes" might sound more natural.

Best wishes

Jonathan
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