How to read a sounding

A sounding is a number with a method. “We are pretty sure” is weather. “We lowered the lead twice, ten minutes apart, and both times found four fathoms of silt over clay” is a sounding.

Meridian refuses to store a claim without a method. If you have not written how you know, the plate will not let you paint a number on the water.

The lead is not the model

People ask whether the model can “estimate confidence.” It can estimate a tone. That is not depth. Depth is a procedure you can repeat. If the procedure cannot be written in a sentence a colleague would run, it is not a sounding.

Shallow is allowed

A two-fathom sounding is not an error. It is a warning. Estuaries are shallow. Early papers are shallow. The crime is marking twelve when you measured two.

We keep a private joke on the bench: the only immoral number is a round one you did not take.

Writing it down

On the plate a sounding looks like this:

1. Claim, in one sentence.
2. Instrument (interview, sensor, archive, replication).
3. When it was taken.
4. Who held the line.

If you cannot fill the fourth line, you are not ready to issue. You can still dump the fragment. The harbor waits.