Development of robust quality assurance procedures for terrestrial essential climate variable data products derived from Earth Observation satellites

Data from Earth Observation (EO) satellites are increasingly used to monitor the environment, understand variability and change, inform evaluations of climate model simulations and forecasts and manage natural resources. Policy makers are progressively relying on information derived from EO data to make decisions on mitigating and adapting to climate change. These decisions should be evidence based, which requires complete confidence in satellite-derived products as well as the in situ measurements used to calibrate, validate or complement these data. This paper provides an overview of the components required to develop robust quality assurance procedures for terrestrial essential climate variable (ECV) data products derived from Earth Observation (EO) satellite datasets.