Copernicus research project: Quality Assurance for Datasets (C3S2_520)

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by ECMWF on behalf of the European Union develops and delivers authoritative, quality-assured information about the past, current and future states of the climate in Europe and worldwide. It aims to a) inform policy development to protect citizens from climate-related hazards such as high-impact weather events, b) improve the planning of mitigation and adaptation practices for key human and societal activities, and c) promote the development of new applications and services for the benefit of society.

In this regard, quality assurance (in the following also: Evaluation and Quality Control or EQC) is a central component of C3S to establish the service as a trusted source of climate information, delivering quality-assured and authoritative service outputs such as datasets and applications that are traceable and reproducible. The EQC function ensures transparency of the service outputs including their quality attributes and builds the basis for a true operationalization of climate services and the inclusion of climate data into policies and standards. Quality is a key element to build trust between users and providers.

The objective of the C3S2_520 project is to further enhance the quality and efficiency of the C3S Evaluation and Quality Control (EQC) function through the delivery of an efficient and timely quality assurance of C3S climate datasets. The final goal is to facilitate users in the dataset selection and the self-assessment fitness-for-purpose of the selected datasets. The objective of C3S2_520 is to continue the EQC effort addressed in previous EQC contracts (C3S_511 and C3S_512), evolve the existing EQC concepts and infrastructure already put in place, and further consolidate, harmonize and streamline the entire framework, including its methodologies, procedures and outputs.