UCDs to describe atmospheric conditions

[Markus Demleitner]

Dear Alberto,

On Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 09:50:32AM +0000, Alberto Micol wrote:
> ESO measures the atmospheric conditions at the various sites
> (Paranal, La Silla, Chajnantor, and later Armazones).
> Here, a minimal list of the most important quantities measured:
> ·         Absolute humidity
> ·         Relative humidity
> ·         Turbulence intensity (in units of m**(1/3))
> ·         Temperature
> ·         Dew temperature
> ·         Precipitable water vapour
> ·         Wind direction
> ·         Wind speed component U, V, W
> ·         Rain (percentage)
> ·         Coherence time of the turbulence (Tau0)
> ·         Isoplanatic angle (Theta0)
> ·         Characteristic velocity of the turbulence
> ·         Small (0.5 micron) dust particle count per cube meter
> ·         etc.
> 
> Would it be possible to introduce some new UCDs to cover those
> concepts?  I can provide the definitions for the listed quantities,
> if that helps defining those UCDs.

It is certainly possible, but of course we need credible scenarios
for how clients would use such UCDs to figure out granularity and
target concepts.  For instance, if it is just "don't worry about this
column unless debugging", I'd say the obs.param would cover all of
them.   On the other hand, if it were "Globally find spectra taken
with little water in the local air" (for some plausible reason),
letting clients identify the absolute humidity becomes a requirement
and we'd need a UCD for that.

Do you have concrete ideas on how some piece of software would use
these information if marked up with specific UCDs?

> I also hope that other ground-based observatories have the same
> need, anybody out there?

Yes, collecting a set of environmental parameters that observatories
provide and clients consume would be *very* helpful in figuring
out which of these should be described with UCDs on what level.  I
am, however, not very optimistic that many observatory operators are
reading this mailing list.

Isn't there some other forum where one could ask around what
environmental parameters the various facilities give (or would want
to give)?

Thanks,

          Markus