Hi John, In 30 years in oceanography I've never heard any mention of any doubt that it is, at least as far as the usual measurement techniques in oceanogrphy are concerned (polarographic electrodes, Winkler titration and optodes).
The labelling 'dissolved' originated in community usage - it's been referred to as dissolved oxygen or DO for as long as I can remember. Usage of 'molecular' is less common in my experience, but is obviously designed to explicitly exclude the oxygen in species like CO2, HCO3-, CO3--, SO4--. However, any oceanographer who talks about dissolved oxygen - or even just oxygen - is referring to molecular oxygen. Cheers, Roy. ________________________________________ From: CF-metadata [cf-metadata-boun...@cgd.ucar.edu] On Behalf Of John Graybeal [grayb...@marinemetadata.org] Sent: 17 May 2013 19:47 To: CF Metadata List Subject: [CF-metadata] is molecular oxygen in seawater always dissolved? Hi all, I found an odd thing in one of the standard names, and I'm not sure if it's exactly right or I need another name. For context: We (Marinexplore, new affiliation) are aggregating data from A Lot of different sources. So this question is not about one specific observation, but how to best represent all the observations we'll be working with. The name is mole_concentration_of_dissolved_molecular_oxygen_in_sea_water. There is no equivalent name without "dissolved", and I am wondering if a mole concentration of molecular oxygen in sea water will always be dissolved? Or should I request a name without that in it? (In the original CF email from 2010 requesting this name "dissolved" did not appear, and it isn't clear from the history what motivated its inclusion.) Thanks for your advice, and thanks to Alison for your research help. John --------------------------------------------------- John Graybeal Senior Data Manager, Metadata and Semantics T +1 (408) 675-5545 F +1 (408) 616-1626 skype: graybealski Marinexplore 920 Stewart Drive Sunnyvale, CA _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata This message (and any attachments) is for the recipient only. NERC is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the contents of this email and any reply you make may be disclosed by NERC unless it is exempt from release under the Act. Any material supplied to NERC may be stored in an electronic records management system. _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
