Automatic checking of observations at ECMWF
Dahoui, Mohamed ; Bormann, Niels ; Isaksen, Lars
In 2008, ECMWF started to use an automatic data checking system to trigger warnings if there are sudden changes in the quality or availability of the data actively assimilated by the ECMWF four-dimensional variational data assimilation system (4DVAR). The checking system was initially limited to satellite observations, but last year it was extended to cover in-situ measurements. More recently, the system has been complemented with an automatic checking of persistent quality improvements of in-situ data that are blacklisted (not used because of previously poor or unknown data quality) in the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), for potential future use in the analysis. In this article a brief description of the automated checking process is first provided. It is followed by a description of the system configuration for satellite and in-situ observations. Thoughts about the potential of the system to improve the data assimilation and model diagnostics are then discussed. The concluding section presents the status of the system validation and the on-going work to improve it.
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