Advancing Near-Real-Time Quality Controls of Meteorological Observations

Abstract

Meteorological observations from ground weather stations are of upmost importance to implement and run sectoral climate services and to perform scientific activities, such as models’ evaluation and data assimilation. However, meteorological observations may be affected by errors deteriorating the quality and the reliability of the products based on these data. To avoid such a cascade of effects, it is essential to quality check meteorological observations in near real-time. A new system based on several levels of increasing complexity checks is here proposed. Besides the standard quality controls, this system applies dynamic and adaptive checks targeting exactly the locations and the data under analysis. The proposed system is designed to be flexible and easily modifiable thanks to its combined R and XML implementation. To facilitate its applicability, the proposed system is made available as a free open-source software: QuackMe.