I am the data curator of the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC; http://www.iaea.org/ocean-acidification) and would like to provide the following suggestions.
1. One of the main goals of this metadata template is to enable ocean acidification data sets are easily discoverable. But it is hard to achieve this goal if no standard vocabularies describing the variables are defined. For example, the respiration rate can be also expressed as oxygen consumption rate. When one searches for “respiration rate” data, one would also need to search for “oxygen consumption”. So it is important to make sure that the variable names are defined consistently in the metadata. I would be happy to share the vocabulary that is used by the OA-ICC, even though it is work in progress, if that is useful.
2. Carbonate chemistry variables can be calculated using different sets of constants or different software. Information on the calculation method should be included in the metadata to maintain comparability.
3. In perturbation experiments, seawater carbonate chemistry can be manipulated by different techniques, such as adding strong acids and bases, bubbling gas or adding of CO²¯3 and/or HCO¯3.
3 . The method used could be recorded in the metadata.
4. For experimental data, the geographical location from which the organisms have been sampled from also needs to be recorded, not just document the water collection coordinates.
5. Information on the life stage of specimens could be included in the metadata.
Yang Y., 2015. Interactive comment on “A metadata template for ocean acidification data” by L.-Q. Jiang et al. Earth System Science Data Discussions 8:C4–C5. Article.
