Dear Daniel, The value you should store is 35. There is much discussion in the CF archives on the various types of salinity and their units that is best not repeated. It may help your understanding to think of the reason practical salinity is dimensionless and has the canonical unit 1 as being because it is derived from a dimensionless electrical conductivity ratio.
Cheers, Roy. I have now retired but will continue to be active through an Emeritus Fellowship using this e-mail address. ________________________________ From: CF-metadata <cf-metadata-boun...@cgd.ucar.edu> on behalf of Daniel Neumann <daniel.neum...@io-warnemuende.de> Sent: 15 May 2019 11:58 To: CF Metadata Mail List Subject: [CF-metadata] Question to usage of standard_name sea_water_practical_salinity Dear list, The standard name "sea_water_practical_salinity" has the unit "1". The CF FAQ says that "1" is used instead of "psu" as unit (http://cfconventions.org/faq.html#udunits_missing). If we have "35 psu", does the variable "sea_water_practical_salinity" has a value of 35 (just unit "psu" removed) or of 0.035 (35 psu approx. 35 g/kg = 0.035 g/g = 0.035)? Best Regards, Daniel -- Daniel Neumann Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemuende Physical Oceanography and Instrumentation Seestrasse 15 18119 Rostock Germany phone: +49-381-5197-287 fax: +49-381-5197-114 or 440 e-mail: daniel.neum...@io-warnemuende.de This email and any attachments are intended solely for the use of the named recipients. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, copy or distribute this email or any of its attachments and should notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. UK Research and Innovation has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise risk of this email or any attachments containing viruses or malware but the recipient should carry out its own virus and malware checks before opening the attachments. UK Research and Innovation does not accept any liability for any losses or damages which the recipient may sustain due to presence of any viruses. Opinions, conclusions or other information in this message and attachments that are not related directly to UK Research and Innovation business are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of UK Research and Innovation.
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