Product Quality of NRT Products: Description

Product Service Specifications

The graphs show whether the service specifications have been violated during a given month and altitude interval, for a given variable and satellite mission. If an area is hatched it means that the service specifications for the variable where violated on average during the corresponding period. The profiles are divided into latitudinal zones: tropics (30° S-30° N), mid-latitudes (30° S-60° S and 30° N-60° N), and polar regions (60° S-90° S and 60° N-90° N). Each zone is further separated into height layers.

Compliance with specifications

For each variable and day we calculate the STD as follows: (i) for Refractivity of the "observation - background", (ii) for 1D-Var products of the "solution - ECMWF analysis".

Service specifications

The service specifications are summarized in the Validation Reports.

Time series (vertical mean plots)

These plots show the daily mean value of (O-B)/B departures from ECMWF forecasts over a given vertical domain as a function of time, as well as the nominal occultation count (all that passed the QC screening). Bias should be understood as the mean value of the absolute value of the bias. The occultation count refers to the number of profiles that fully or partly covered the given domain. The red-dashed lines indicate the service specification values.

Time series (Hovmöller plots)

These plots show daily standard deviations or biases of the chosen variable, satellite and area. The plots include all data from the selected RO mission that passed the QC screening (i.e. are nominal). Hovmöller plots, showing standard deviation, are overlayed with contours enclosing areas where requirements or specifications are violated. The colorscale shows the standard deviation value and the magenta contours enclose areas where Service Specifications are violated. Hatched areas enclosed by black contours indicate where the PRD "optimal" requirement is not fulfilled. The requirements and specifications are summarized in the Validation Reports.