GSICS Principles - Draft suggestions

These are the fundamental principles on which GSICS is based.

What do we mean when we say something "follows GSICS principles"?

Here are some ideas for further development:

GSICS General Principles

• Traceability
  • Reproducability of results
• Openness
  • Freedom of access
• Applicable to operational weather and environmental satellites of the Global Observing System (GOS)
• ??

GSICS Science Principles

• Traceability
  • through an unbroken chain of comparisons
  • to a common reference
  • with specified uncertainty
• Consistency
  • Applicable to all instruments in a given class
• Systematic
  • Continous ongoing inter-calibration over each instrument's operational lifetime
• Global
  • applicable over the full range of observations??
• Based on level 1 data
  • as supplied by satellite operator
• To provide inter-calibration correction function
  • to allow users to correct original level 1 data
  • to generate Fundamental Climate Data Records (FCDRs)
• To provide bias monitoring
  • to allow users to visualise any trends in the instruments' calibration
  • ?
• ??

GSICS Data Principles

• Traceability
  • Inclusion of meta data giving complete description
• Accessibility
• Following community standard
  • Data formats
  • Variable naming
• ??

-- TimHewison - 15 Sep 2011