Dear Martin, dear All,
it is emerging that groups are making errors in implementing the carbon cycle data requests - especially regarding the units of carbon fluxes. The issue is confusion over whether to report kg of CARBON or kg of CO2. The intended correct answer is buried deep within the long name, where fluxes are described as, ".... flux of CO2 expressed as carbon ...". But unless you know where to look this is rather hidden and is resulting in groups mixing units of carbon and CO2 across variables. So this is a request - actually a plea - that we revisit the decision to include the quantity in the units definition. I have heard the arguments that "kg C" is not an SI unit and we just need to explain it in the long name - but this is really not working and is causing real confusion and errors. So PLEASE, PLEASE, can we re-define the labels for carbon fluxes and stores in terms of "kgC m-2 s-1" etc. ? There has been such a massive effort to both define and implement this data request it would be a huge shame if substantial errors came in at the last minute - this small change will prevent that. thanks, Chris -- Dr Chris Jones Head, Earth System and Mitigation Science Team Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1392 884514 Fax: +44 (0)1392 885681 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk<http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/>
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