GSICS Product Taxonomy

Developing a taxonomy of GSICS products is very important for establishing future data management policies. The following classification scheme was adopted at a meeting on April 9, 2013 by Tim Hewison (EUMETSAT, GRWG chairman), Fangfang Yu (NOAA, GCC Deputy Director), and Aleksandar Jelenak (NOAA, GDWG chairman).

Every product will be categorized according to the instrument class, algorithm type, and product type. The acronyms for various electromagnetic spectrum ranges that will be used throughout this text are in the table below. The provided wavelength values are intended to generally describe the particular spectrum range and should not be assumed to represent exact limits.

Spectral Range	Acronym	Wavelength Range (μm)
Ultraviolet	UV	below 0.4
Visible	VIS	0.4 to 0.75
Near-infrared	NIR	0.75 to 3.0
Infrared	IR	3.0 to 15.0
Far-infrared	FIR	15 to 1,000
Microwave	MW	greater than 1,000

Each of these categories is explained below.

Instrument Class

Instrument class represents the types of monitored and reference instruments, and the electromagnetic spectrum range of their observational capabilities. Some examples of instrument classes:

• GEO-LEO-IR (GEO monitored instrument; LEO reference instrument; IR spectral range)
• GEO-LEO-VIS
• GEO-LEO-NIR
• GEO-LEO-VISNIR
• LEO-LEO-IR
• LEO-LEO-VIS
• LEO-LEO-UVVIS
• LEO-LEO-MW (LEO-LEO Microwave)
• GEO-GEO-IR
• GEO-GEO-VIS

Principal Methodology

This category describes the main methodology used for the product. Possible descriptors are:

• NWP-DD (Numerical Weather Prediction Double Differencing)
• Hyperspectral
• Broadband
• DCC (Deep Convective Clouds)
• Moon
• Stars
• Rayleigh Scattering
• PICS (Pseudo Invariant Calibration Sites)
• SNO (Simultaneous Nadir Overpass)
• Ray Matching
• LWC (Liquid Water Cloud)
• Sun Glint
• Amazon
• Dome C
• Combined Method (this is not a method on its own but a combination of two or more other principle methods)

Product Type

Possible product types are:

• RAC (Re-analysis Correction)
• NRTC (Near Real-Time Correction)
• Daily
• ARC (Archive Re-Calibration)

GSICS Product Properties

The above developed classification scheme is only a part of the information associated with each GSICS product. Below is the list of all the properties associated with one product:

• Name
• Data producer
• Data publisher
• Instrument class
• Principal methodology
• Product type
• Monitored instrument
• Reference instrument (one or more)
• Version number
• Data URL
• Documentation URL
• Metadata URL (optional; one or more)

Classification Example

Here is an example of all the properties of one real instance of a GSICS product:

• Name: GEOLEOIR
• Data producer: NESDIS
• Data publisher: NESDIS
• Instrument class: GEO-LEO-IR
• Principal methodology: Hyperspectral SNO
• Product type: RAC
• Monitored instrument: GOES-13 Imager
• Reference instrument: Metop-A IASI
• Version number: 1.0.1
• Data URL: (See the product catalog)
• Documentation URL: (See the product catalog)
• Metadata URL: (Not available)