Quality Control Procedures in Processing Oceanographic Data

The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) receives significant volumes of oceanographic environmental data for processing. These data vary from the conventional ocean station data and expendable bathythermograph data to a wide variety of biological and pollution data. The need for a more objective environmental quality control became evident as the volume of data continued to increase. At the same time, the resources-enriched computer capability and large climatological files of fully processed data-for developing such a system became available. The NODC procedures, prior to the development of environmental models, were based primarily on the initial quality control by data donors and subjective analysis by NODC oceanographers. This study describes the use of ocean models for quality controlling ocean serial and XBT data.