ice_and_snow_on_land area type description

[taylor13]

The description in http://cfconventions.org/Data/area-type-table/10/build/area-type-table.html of the area type ice_and_snow_on_land says "The area type "ice_and_snow_on_land" means ice in glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets (grounded and floating shelves), river and lake ice, any other ice on a land surface, such as frozen flood water, and snow lying on such ice or on the land surface."

If the description is correct, then I think the area type should be named "ice_or_snow_on_land". The current name would imply to me that only the land area covered with snow on ice should be considered, but I think we want areas covered by snow alone or covered by ice (with snow on top or not).

[JonathanGregory]

Yes, I think you're right, Karl @taylor13, and this would be consistent with lake_ice_or_sea_ice. I don't think we have aliases for area types, and we cannot invalidate old data, so if we want to change ice_and_snow_on_land to ice_or_snow_on_land we might have to define the new one but keep the old one too, with a modified definition to say it's deprecated.

[taylor13]

Thanks for reviewing this. Formally, I think the correction is consistent with language used in set theory where the union of set A and set B is described as the set comprising members of A or B or both. The intersection of set A and set B is described as the set comprising members of both A and B. Thus, ice_or_snow would be consistent with the description. As you note we do not provide for aliases, so proceeding as you suggest seems easiest.

[davidhassell]

Hello

I agree that "or" is better than "and", here, and @JonathanGregory's suggestion sounds good.

[taylor13]

Yes, let's do it!

[JonathanGregory]

To summarise. We have agreed

• To define a new area type of ice_or_snow_on_land with the existing definition of ice_and_snow_on_land: The area type "ice_or_snow_on_land" means ice in glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets (grounded and floating shelves), river and lake ice, any other ice on a land surface, such as frozen flood water, and snow lying on such ice or on the land surface.

• To change the definition of the existing area type ice_and_snow_on_land to: "The area type ice_and_snow_on_land is deprecated. It means the same as ice_or_snow_on_land, which should be used instead."

Please could the moderators @feggleton @japamment review this proposal? Thanks

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