Modification of existing CF standard names
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SUGGESTED CHANGES
Individual names
(old names in bold)
mass_fraction_ammonium_dry_aerosol_in_air
This should be mass_fraction_OF_ammonium_dry_aerosol_in_air
mass_concentration_of_sulfate_aerosol_in_air
This should be mass_concentration_of_sulfate_DRY_aerosol_in_air
aerosol_angstrom_exponent
angstrom_exponent_of_ambien_aerosol_in_air
atmosphere_content_of_sulfate_aerosol
atmosphere_MASS_content_of_sulfate_DRY_aerosol
optical_thickness_of_atmosphere_layer_due_to_aerosol
The other optical thickness names are built like this:
atmosphere_optical_thickness_due_to_X
For consistency, I would suggest to change the first name to
atmosphere_layer_optical_thickness_due_to_aerosol
surface_carbon_dioxide_mole_flux
new: I am not sure
tendency_of_moles_of_carbon_dioxide_at_the_surface
tendency_of_moles_of_carbon_dioxide_in_atmosphere_due_to_net_surface_flux
Medium 'atmosphere'
The Guidelines for Construction of CF Standard Names
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-standard-names/guidelines
state for 'atmosphere' under 'Special Phrases':
'atmosphere:
used instead of in_air for quantities which are large-scale rather than local '
This is not correct for the chemicals and aerosols. Here in_air is
opposed to in_cloud, in_rain, etc, where as in_atmosphere describes
the whole atmosphere. Therefore in_atmosphere cannot be the same as
in_air
In addition, 'atmosphere' is not consistently placed:
tendency_of_atmosphere_mass_content_of_<X>_due_to_<process>
Tendency_of_moles_of_<G>_in_atmosphere
Hence, atmosphere is also used as a prefix. I would suggest to change
this and only use the term in_atmosphere.
position of 'expressed as'
I would suggest to attach the 'expressed_as' to the quality it refers
to, e.g.
tendency_of_atmosphere_mass_content_of_nox_expressed_as_nitrogen_due_to_emission
In some of the accepted standard names this is however not the case, like
for example in
mole_concentration_of_diatoms_in_sea_water_expressed_as_nitrogen
In this case the Medium is squeezed in.
aerosol - ambient or dry
I would suggest to get rid of the term _aerosol_ and replace it by
dry_aerosol or/and ambient_aerosol for the atmosphere to avoid
problems.
It would probably also be good to explain the meanings of _dry_ and _ambient_ aerosol.
