ISCCP Data QC and Processing: Transitioning Production Between Institutions

The iconic International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) H-Series code base has been transitioned from the former NASA-GISS team to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) as part of NOAA's Climate Data Records Program. The major tasks for producing H-Series products during the data period from 1983-2009, were to establish and deploy the code base and its workflow, perform QC analysis of input data, and produce and monitor H-Series products to examine the quality of pixel level and all merged data products. Beyond 2009, additional requirements for H-Series data production included configuration considerations for new satellites (i.e., Meteosat 10 and GOE-13/15, and other rapidly approaching satellites like GOES-R and Himawari-8). As an outcome of these tasks, the reprocessing of the ISCCP H-Series production has led to many learned lessons. The processing flow and lessons learned will be shared with the intent to further expand ISCCP applications among existing and new user groups.