QUALITY-CONTROL AND FLUX SAMPLING PROBLEMS FOR TOWER AND AIRCRAFT DATA

A series of automated tests is developed for tower and aircraft time s eries to identify instrumentation problems, Bur sampling problems, and physically plausible but unusual situations. The automated procedures serve as a safety net for quality controlling data. A number of speci al flags are developed representing a variety of-potential problems su ch as inconsistencies between different tower levels and the flux erro r due to fluctuations of aircraft height. The tests are implemented by specifying critical values for parameters representing each specific error. The critical values are developed empirically from experience o f applying the tests to real turbulent time series. When these values are exceeded, the record is Bagged for further inspection and comparis on with the rest of the concurrent data. The inspection step is necess ary to either verify an instrumentation problem or identify physically plausible behavior. The set of tests is applied to tower data from th e Riso Air Sea Experiment and Microfronts95 and aircraft data from the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study.