[Seavox] Fwd: [Ask] uncertainty and accuracy terms

[Roy Lowry]

Dear All,

Picked this up on an MMI list.  Discussion pointed to sources in the IEEE domain. I've never seen anything in the oceanographic domain, but thought I'd ask this list to see if anyone knew of anything I'd missed.  

Sounds a useful thing to have....

Cheers, Roy.  

>>> Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith at whoi.edu> 6/20/2008 3:54 pm >>>
Hi All -

Can anyone point me to a good set of terms that captures both
precision, or resolution, and accuracy, or uncertainty? 

We're struggling with describing the appropriate 'limits of usefulness'
of  observed data points, and have discussed using all the terms above. 

We'd like to provide data users with the metadata needed to interpret
floating point values based on sensor measurement and recording
capabilities, calibration reliability, and processing - averaging and/or
subsampling schemes, both within the instrument and in processing.

How many terms do we need for this, and is there a standard vocabulary
that has been widely adopted and has well-defined terms?  We used
to use the NetCDF  "C format" attribute to cover part of this, but that
seems irrelevant these days; we've used "absolute accuracy" as
another component, but I'm not positive I know how that's defined.
If "uncertainty" is provided as a floating point value, it loses its
ability to convey resolution - I guess that's true of all the terms.

Any pointers to standards would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Nan

-- 
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* Nan Galbraith                        (508) 289-2444 *
* Upper Ocean Processes Group            Mail Stop 29 *
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution                *
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