Uncertainty information in climate data records from Earth observation

Merchant, Christopher J.; Paul, Frank; Popp, Thomas; Ablain, Michael; Bontemps, Sophie; Defourny, Pierre; Hollmann, Rainer; Lavergne, Thomas; Laeng, Alexandra; de Leeuw, Gerrit; Mittaz, Jonathan; Poulsen, Caroline; Povey, Adam C.; Reuter, Max; Sathyendranath, Shubha; Sandven, Stein; Sofieva, Viktoria F.; Wagner, Wolfgang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-511-2017

Articles | Volume 9, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-511-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-511-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 2

Review article

|

25 Jul 2017

Review article |

| 25 Jul 2017

Uncertainty information in climate data records from Earth observation

Christopher J. Merchant, Frank Paul, Thomas Popp, Michael Ablain, Sophie Bontemps, Pierre Defourny, Rainer Hollmann, Thomas Lavergne, Alexandra Laeng, Gerrit de Leeuw, Jonathan Mittaz, Caroline Poulsen, Adam C. Povey, Max Reuter, Shubha Sathyendranath, Stein Sandven, Viktoria F. Sofieva, and Wolfgang Wagner

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Final revised paper (published on 25 Jul 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 28 Feb 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

AC1: 'Minor corrections to note', Christopher J. Merchant, 22 Mar 2017
RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Mar 2017
RC2: 'Review of ESSD-2017-16, Uncertainties', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 May 2017
AC2: 'Final comments from authors', Christopher J. Merchant, 19 Jun 2017

Short summary

Climate data records (CDRs) contain data describing Earth's climate and should address uncertainty in the data to communicate what is known about climate variability or change and what range of doubt exists. This paper discusses good practice for including uncertainty information in CDRs for the essential climate variables (ECVs) derived from satellite data. Recommendations emerge from the shared experience of diverse ECV projects within the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative.