Identification

Title

Diagnosis of insidious data disasters

Abstract

Everyone taking field observations has a story of data collection gone wrong, and in most cases, the errors in the data are immediately obvious. A more challenging problem occurs when the errors are insidious, i.e., not readily detectable, and the error-laden data appear useful for model testing and development. We present two case studies, one related to the water balance in the snow-fed Tuolumne River, Sierra Nevada, California, combined with modeling using the Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM); and one related to the energy balance at Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, combined with modeling using the Structure for Unifying Multiple Modeling Alternatives (SUMMA). In the Tuolumne, modeled streamflow in 1 year was more than twice as large as observed; at Snoqualmie, modeled nighttime surface temperatures were biased by about +10°C. Both appeared to be modeling failures, until detective work uncovered observational errors. We conclude with a discussion of what these cases teach us about science in an age of specialized research, when one person collects data, a separate person conducts model simulations, and a computer is charged with data quality assurance.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pg1sx5

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2015-05-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact