Quality Assurance Evaluation

Overview of results of quality assurance automated tests for January 1997
by Mark Shafer:
The only major concerns I have from the January QA files is that there
were several episodes where Leaf Wetness sensors were flagged as suspect
by the persistence routine, perhaps erroneously.  We may have our threshold
on persistence for Leaf Wetness still a bit too high. 

Since the flags are only suspect it
should not really cause problems.  There were also a number of pressure
sensors flagged on January 17 (see 19970117.QBD).  I think these were
correctly flagged.  I am not certain, but it may have been related to
ice clogging the presssure port.  The stations which were flagged were
pretty much in a consistent geographical area.

Users of the data should review the January 1997 automatically
generated QA files.

• -180.0 - +180.0(alt)
• accumulated rainfall since 00GMT except at 00 GMT, the number given is the total
  accumulation for the past 24 hours(prec_amt)
• vector average wind magnitude(wvec_10m)
• Time offset from base_time(time_offset)
• Retrieved pressure profile(pres)
• standard deviation of wind speed(wspd_sigma)
• average wind run (arithmetic average speed) at 10m(wspd_10m)
• vector average of wind direction measured at 10m(wdir_10m)
• air temperature at 1.5m(tdry_1_5m)
• base time in epoch(base_time)
• lon(lon)
• maximum 3-second wind speed within the 5-minute averaging period(wspd_max)
• average wind speed at 2m(wspd_2m)
• Relative Humidity (hybrid-b grid)(rh)
• air temperature at 9m(tdry_9m)
• solar radiation(srad)
• standard deviation of wind direction(wdir_sigma)
• North Latitude(lat)

• leaf wetness index, measurement of dew ranging from 0 (dry) to 100(wet)(leaf_ind)
• -180.0 - +180.0(alt)
• soil temperature at 5 cm beneath natural sod cover(tsoil5)
• 10 cm soil temp(tsoil10)
• soil temperature at 5 cm beneath bare soil(tbare5)
• Average battery voltage(vbat)
• base time in epoch(base_time)
• lon(lon)
• soil temperature at 10cm beneath bare soil(tbare10)
• soil temperature at 30 cm beneath bare soil(tbare30)
• Time offset from base_time(time_offset)
• North Latitude(lat)