Quality Assurance (QA) in the GOES-R AWG Product Processing System

The GOES-R Algorithm Working Group (AWG) Product Processing System Framework has been developed at NOAA/NESDIS/STAR. Thirty five GOES-R ABI algorithms have been integrated into the framework. The framework will serve as a test-bed to test the algorithms with full product precedence. During development and integration, many issues had to be addressed whose impacts reached across science teams such as the handling of parallax, bias correction, surface reflectance, and the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM).

The AWG Integration Team (AIT) Quality Assurance (QA) process is playing an ongoing role in managing these issues as well as ensuring that the algorithms and products meet requirements. In the initial phase, the AIT provides coding standards and test data control. Throughout integration, it coordinates with each algorithm team to address scientific concerns, identify problems, and discuss solutions. The AIT identifies, mitigates, and tracks the project risks during reviews so that problems are addressed early in the integration phase. In addition, the AIT will develop an integrated product monitoring/visualization system utilizing each individual product's verification methods. Metadata variables are trended to monitor the product performance. For key deliveries, the AIT will run all the products using common extended (at least 4-month data to cover each season) proxy data sets, and generate needed metdata files for trending plot. The QA process will assure a faster and more efficient research-to-operation transition. The QA activities in the AIT will be described in this presentation.