Data quality, which includes quality control, performance monitoring, and calibration and validation, is routinely carried out to ensure that EarthCARE meets its mission and data quality requirements.

EarthCARE Quality Control Reports

EarthCARE Quality Control (QC) Reports are produced on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, covering products produced from all three ESA instruments, ATLID, BBR and MSI.

EarthCARE Daily Quality Control Reports

The daily QC reports provide the quality status of the instruments and products from the previous day. Information in the daily QC reports includes a daily production visualization, data completeness, quality flag warnings and failures, and comparison with Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) forecasts.

Download EarthCARE daily reports

Product Availability

Information related to the availability of EarthCARE data, including periods of planned and unplanned data unavailability, is provided in a weekly Excel report. This report will be updated each week with the latest gaps. The initial version of the report is v1.0, and it will continue to have this version number with each weekly update. The file version number will only be updated following either a reprocessing of the whole dataset (e.g. v2.0) or a reanalysis of the gaps (e.g. v1.1).

Download the data unavailability report

Reprocessing Quality Updates

EarthCARE data will be reprocessed periodically. The reprocessed data will undergo QC similar to that carried out operationally. This section will provide information related to the reprocessed data quality, including relevant QC reports.

Instrument Status and Overpass Information

An overpass is when the field of view of a satellite’s instrument passes over an area of interest (AOI). EarthCARE overpass information is provided by the ESA Validation Data Centre (EVDC) using their Orbit Prediction and Overpass Tool (OPOT).

EarthCARE overpasses of radioastronomy (RAS) sites are also available from the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS). View the list of time periods when the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) instrument on-board EarthCARE is visible from RAS. Download flyover reports from the overpasses.

Calibration/Validation

Calibration activities ensure that the EarthCARE instruments are performing well and to their established baselines. Validation activities ensure that the EarthCARE data and products are meaningful and well characterised with respect to uncertainties due to sensitivity or resolution.