Abstract
Climate services are becoming the backbone to translate climate knowledge, data &
information into climate-informed decision-making at all levels, from public administrations to
business operators. It is essential to assess the technical and scientific quality of the provided climate
data and information products, including their value to users, to establish the relation of trust
between providers of climate data and information and various downstream users. The climate
data and information products (i.e., from satellite, in-situ and reanalysis) shall be fully traceable,
adequately documented and uncertainty quantified and can provide sucient guidance for users to
address their specific needs and feedbacks. This paper discusses details on how to apply the quality
assurance framework to deliver timely assessments of the quality and usability of Essential Climate
Variable (ECV) products. It identifies an overarching structure for the quality assessment of single
product ECVs (i.e., consists of only one single variable), multi-product ECVs (i.e., more than one
single parameter), thematic products (i.e., water, energy and carbon cycles), as well as the usability
assessment. To support a traceable climate service, other than rigorously evaluating the technical
and scientific quality of ECV products, which represent the upstream of climate services, how the
uncertainty propagates into the resulting benefit (utility) for the users of the climate service needs to
be detailed.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1186 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-28 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Remote sensing |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 10 |
Early online date | 18 May 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2019 |
Keywords
- Climate data records
- ITC-ISI-JOURNAL-ARTICLE
- ITC-GOLD
- Essential climate variables
- Quality assurance
- Traceability
- Usability assessment
- Climate services