New Report Details One-of-a-Kind Data Quality Assurance Approach

 
Published: 1 July 2008

With about 315 instruments systems operating 24/7 at locations around the world, dedication to data quality is a hallmark of ARM.

Very few long-running (10+ years) field based measurement programs have the diversity of instruments and data types that the ARM Climate Research Facility does. This month, the ARM data team published a report that goes beyond the narrow definition of data quality assurance by describing its end-to-end approach to data quality, which has evolved since 1992. Titled Quality Assurance of ARM Program Climate Research Facility Data, the document includes a comprehensive overview of the scope and complexity of the ARM infrastructure and describes in detail all of the components needed to manage data availability, usability, and accessibility at this scale—key components on which ARM performance is measured. In sharing this information with the climate research community, ARM is providing the report as a sort of “conceptual model” for those who may want to attempt a similar feat in other locations or with other observational themes.

“The uniqueness of ARM is its diversity of measurements and sites combined with longevity,” said Randy Peppler, ARM Data Quality Assurance Manager. “While some organizations have one or the other, no other program can take credit for both attributes at a similar scale.”

Most research programs strive for useable, large-scale data collections, but few have succeeded on such a grand scale. ARM has implemented the systems needed to accomplish this capability—very important for maintaining a climate-scale [decades] collection of field observations. Organizations planning on fielding automated environmental and climate data collection sites could find information in the report valuable. The technical report is available here.