2001-08-02
I wonder if they would accept A4 paper size and would accept the "tonne"
instead of the "metric ton".
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "James R. Frysinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, 2001-08-02 22:45
Subject: [USMA:14739] ]long] SI in the American Meteorological Society
> I am reviewing the latest (2000 Dec) version of the Authors' Guide,
> published by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in preparation
> for submission of a paper. Some things here struck me as being of
> potential interest to members of this mail list.
>
> The AMS is quite firm on the use of the SI (and units acceptable with
> the SI). Right off the bat, the paper size is specified first in SI
> then in ifp: "28 cm x 22 cm (8.5" x 11"), with wide margins (about 2.5
> cm on all sides)."
>
> Then, in the list of causes for immediate rejection, they include
> "Units not in SI."
>
> They go on to state requirements and exceptions in more
> detail. To summarize:
> 1. They prefer degrees Celsius over kelvins,
> 2. The prefer the pascal (with appropriate prefixes) over the bar,
> though the bar may still be used if such usage is common in that field.
> The example they give is the hectopascal, though no preference is
> implied over the kilopascal. They acknowledge that meteorologists often
> use the millibar and oceanographers often use the decibar. What might
> surprise some here is that they give the symbols for those as mb and
> db, respectively, instead of mbar and dbar (as shown in Table 8 of the
> SI brochure).
> 3. "Logarithmic measures and their units such as pH, dB, dBZ, and Np
> are acceptable."
> 4. Uppercase L is preferred over lowercase l as the symbol for liter
> and the metric ton (t) is preferred over the megagram (Mg).
> 5. "AMS accepts the symbol "n mi" for nautical mile, although this
> symbol is not recognized by the International Committee on Weights and
> Measures."
> 6. "AMS accepts the symbol "kt" for the unit of speed "knot"
> representing nautical miles per hour, but the corresponding speed
> expressed in SI units (normally in m s -1 ) should always be indicated
> as well."
> 7. "In situations where the use of SI units would seriously impede
> communication, values expressed in more familiar units may be inserted
> parenthetically after the SI units. Similarly, in graphs, non-SI units
> may be used as a secondary coordinate scale if necessary for improving
> the reader's understanding of the results."
> 8. They want symbols in a compound set to be separated by a space (not
> a raised dot) and the solidus (/) is to be avoided, using negative
> exponents instead.
>
> Dimension requirements for columns, figures, etc. are given in SI with
> ifp (sometimes) stated parenthetically.
>
> No explicit statement is made, but all examples show a space between
> numbers and unit symbols in quantities.
>
> This is not part of the SI but members would probably want to know that
> the guide specifies time and date in these formats: "29 March 1993" and
> "1409 UTC 29 March 1993". Colons are used to separate minutes and
> seconds, but not hours and minutes; times are in 24-h format.
>
> The AMS might be dinged for a couple of very tiny things, but it is one
> of the most SI-diligent organizations I have found so far. It beats out
> the astronomers by a light-bulb, parsnip, or whatever that unit of
> length is that the stargazers use.
>
> I'm using the pdf version, but there's an html version of the complete
> guide at
> http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS/pubs/ag_docs/ag_mainpage.html
>
> Keep in mind that this is a guide used for publication of papers, not
> guidance for the TV Weather Personalities or for NWS products.
>
> Jim
>
> --
> James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
> 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
> Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
> 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
> http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
>
