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IMAP-Lo - terminology clarification #3197

@vineetbansal

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@vineetbansal

The value read from {species}_background_variance is being assigned directly to bg_stat_uncert (statistical uncertainty). If the producer's variable truly stores a variance (σ²) — as the field name suggests — then the consumer should take sqrt(...) before using it as an uncertainty. Looking at the L1B producer (imap_processing/lo/l1b/lo_l1b.py:2700-2707), the data assigned to this variable comes from sigma_bg_rates_out, i.e. a sigma (standard deviation), so the L1B field name *_background_variance is itself misleading. Either way, please verify with the Lo team and align the naming/units so this consumer code is unambiguous; otherwise downstream users will silently get the wrong quantity if the producer name is ever corrected to match its content.

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