Dear Nan Including upward/downward in the standard names of vertical components of vectors was a design decision when we started on the compiling the table, as with northward/southward, eastward/westward and any quantity which has a direction associated with it. Yes, there are other pairs where both senses have names. The reason is to make sure the sign convention is recorded. If it was a separate attribute, there's a reasonable chance it would not be included, or might be wrong.
It sounds like you have a different use-case, with a sensor that measures a velocity component which isn't strictly vertical. We could give that a different name (i.e. component parallel to the instrument orientation, with again the need to indicate the sign convention somehow). Best wishes Jonathan ----- Forwarded message from Nan Galbraith <ngalbra...@whoi.edu> ----- > Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 10:31:25 -0500 > From: Nan Galbraith <ngalbra...@whoi.edu> > To: cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu > Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] New standard_name: downward_air_velocity > User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:38.0) > Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.6.0 > > I agree, it's consistent, and may as well be added. > > That said, I'm not sure why we don't use 'vertical' for the vertical > component of > all these 3d velocity vectors, and then recommend an attribute that > would specify > the direction (up- or down-ward). I didn't have time to check > whether we have > any standard names that exist in both the upward and downward form ( I'm > not really sure if that would be a problem, any way, but it seems > like it might be). > > The reason this is important in my data is that some current meters > and profilers > output a vertical velocity where the direction depends on the > orientation of the > instrument. The vertical velocity is also a measure of measurement > quality in those > data sets, since excessive vertical values usually indicate an error > in the other > vectors. > > Cheers - Nan > > On 2/26/16 2:46 PM, Jonathan Gregory wrote: > >Dear Ken > > > >That looks good to me - clearly consistent with existing names. > > > >Best wishes > > > >Jonathan > > > >----- Forwarded message from "Kehoe, Kenneth E." <kke...@ou.edu> ----- > > > >>Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 20:31:31 +0000 > >>From: "Kehoe, Kenneth E." <kke...@ou.edu> > >>To: "cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu" <cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu> > >>Subject: [CF-metadata] New standard_name: downward_air_velocity > >> > >>CF, > >> > >>Can we add downward_air_velocity to be the counter to the existing > >>upward_air_velocity. > >> > >>Definition = A velocity is a vector quantity. “Downward" indicates a vector > >>component which is positive when directed downward (negative upward). > >>Downward air velocity is the vertical component of the 3D air velocity > >>vector. > >> > >>Thanks, > >> > >>Ken > >> > >> > > > -- > ******************************************************* > * Nan Galbraith Information Systems Specialist * > * Upper Ocean Processes Group Mail Stop 29 * > * Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution * > * Woods Hole, MA 02543 (508) 289-2444 * > ******************************************************* > > > _______________________________________________ > CF-metadata mailing list > CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu > http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
