Lev Gandin's legacy of complex quality control and some further developments in data quality control at NCEP


- General principles and results -

William G. Collins

NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC

Abstract:

This seminar concentrates on the principles and tools used in four of NCEP's quality control programs: CQCBUFR, CQCPROF, CQCVAD and the quality control within the Regional 3DVAR. The importance of the application of complex quality control principles, as brought here by Lev Gandin in 1988, is emphasized. The other major thread, now found in several of the quality control programs, is the use of the assumption that data errors are a combination of random and rough errors.

The principles are expounded, the tools described, and examples are provided. There is no detailed description of any of the quality control programs. Rather, the important under-girding for them is explored.