WMO/GAW Glossary of QA/QC-Related Terminology

The evaluation and characterisation of data obtained from measurements made within WMO/GAW involve a number of statistical parameters and specific terms to characterise data quality. At present, several of these terms (e.g. precision) are frequently used with different meaning by different people. Efforts for standardization have been made in the past, involving contributions from a number of international organizations, and are coordinated under the umbrella of →ISO. With the aim of ensuring the comparability and consistency of measurements, the GAW Strategic Plan [5] recommends adoption and use of internationally accepted methods and vocabulary to deal with measurement uncertainty as outlined in various ISO publications [1-3, 5, 6]. Since each term should have the same meaning for all of its users, efforts are called for to familiarize all individuals involved in WMO/GAW and the associated scientific community with the relevant terminology. The following glossary is intended as a step in this direction. GAW members are encoouraged to use these terms in their own publications and to suggest their use when reviewing manuscripts of others.