Yang, Chunxue and Cagnazzo, Chiara and Artale, Vincenzo and Buongiorno Nardelli, Bruno and Buontempo, Carlo and Busatto, Jacopo and Caporaso, Luca and Cesarini, Claudia and Cionni, Irene and Coll, John and Crezee, Bas and Cristofanelli, Paolo and de Toma, Vincenzo and Hesham Essa, Yassmin and Eyring, Veronika and Fierli, Federico and Grant, Luke and Hassler, Birgit and Hirschi, Martin and Huybrechts, Philippe and Le Merle, Eva and Elisa Leonelli, Francesca and Lin, Xia and Madonna, Fabio and Mason, Evan and Massonnet, François and Marcos, Marta and Marullo, Salvatore and Müller, Benjamin and Obregon, Andre and Organelli, Emanuele and Palacz, Artur and Pascual, Ananda and Pisano, Andrea and Putero, Davide and Rana, Arun and Sánchez-Román, Antonio and Seneviratne, Sonia I. and Serva, Federico and Storto, Andrea and Thiery, Wim and Thorne, Peter and Van Tricht, Lander and Verhaegen, Yoni and Volpe, Gianluca and Santoleri, Rosalia (2022) Independent Quality Assessment of Essential Climate Variables: Lessons learnt from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, E2033. ISSN 1520-0477

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Abstract

If climate services are to lead to effective use of climate information in decision-making to enable the transition to a climate-smart, climate-ready world, then the question of trust in the products and services is of paramount importance. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has been actively grappling with how to build such trust: provision of demonstrably independent assessments of the quality of products, which was deemed an important element in such trust-building processes. C3S provides access to essential climate variables (ECVs) from multiple sources to a broad set of users ranging from scientists to private companies and decision-makers. Here we outline the approach ­undertaken to coherently assess the quality of a suite of observation- and reanalysis-based ECV products covering the atmosphere, ocean, land, and cryosphere. The assessment is based on four pillars: basic data checks, maturity of the datasets, fitness for purpose (scientific use cases and climate studies), and guidance to users. It is undertaken independently by scientific experts and presented alongside the datasets in a fully traceable, replicable, and transparent manner. The methodology deployed is detailed, and example assessments are given. These independent scientific quality assessments are intended to guide users to ensure they use tools and datasets that are fit for purpose to answer their specific needs rather than simply use the first product they alight on. This is the first such effort to develop and apply an assessment framework consistently to all ECVs. Lessons learned and future perspectives are outlined to potentially improve future assessment activities and thus climate services.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Climate change; Climate records; Quality assurance/control; Satellite observations; Reanalysis data; Climate services;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
Item ID:	17759
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0109.1
Depositing User:	Peter Thorne
Date Deposited:	27 Oct 2023 14:10
Journal or Publication Title:	Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Publisher:	American Meteorological Society
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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